ARE WE "sleepwalking" into a surveillance society? The information commissioner, Richard Thomas, thinks we are, and said so in a report last week.

This sleepwalking image was splashed across the papers, yet it doesn't quite work. If you are walking while asleep, as some people do, why would you care if you were being watched? In fact, it would be handy if some CCTV operative popped up from their crow's nest and shouted a warning about the lamppost-shaped object in front of you.

Mr Thomas's report looked at the rise of CCTV cameras - 4.2 million and counting - alongside other issues, such as databases, biometrics, electronic tracking, DNA and identity cards.

His sleepwalking conclusion has given rise to much anguished comment. The Daily Telegraph newspaper became particularly agitated, saying New Labour had "destroyed our privacy".

This seems a bit strong, even paranoid. It is true that our movements are watched and logged as never before, and truer still that the Government wishes to waste untold billions on forcing us to carry ID cards.

Personally, I would resent carrying such an official means of identification, but this appears to be a minority view. A Mori opinion poll suggests that 80 per cent of people support ID cards. So we will be lumbered with the bothersome things some time or other, and they will cost us.

CCTV cameras are now so common, thanks in part to digital technology, that we are recorded all the time. My own view of CCTV is coloured by events. When my bike was stolen from The Press car park, the cameras revealed that those responsible were fuzzy blobs wearing baseball caps. You will not be surprised to hear that the fuzzy blob gang is still at large.

Initially, I was suspicious of CCTV cameras, yet most people seem to approve, believing they help to check crime. So it seems strange that so many commentators are joining the surveillance sleepwalkers.

Here's a theory which may offer an explanation. All these snoop-obsessed scribes enjoy paranoia, they want to feel got-at and victimised. If they can delude themselves into thinking that an all-seeing Government is watching their every move, crimping their every freedom, then all their anti-state fears are justified, and any good that the state does can be rubbished.

This is not to suggest that we should trust the Government at every turn, but it is to suggest that we shouldn't fall for every paranoid hypothesis doing the rounds.

If the surveillance loons are to be believed, the Government is more or less an evil, over-inquisitive body with its nasty nose pressed up against every window in the land.

Aside from those who love a good conspiracy theory, most ordinary people are more likely to watch Big Brother on television than worry that we are living in a Big Brother state.

Also, it's all very well moaning about what the Government wants to know about us, but we freely give away so much information about our means and movements, to banks, big stores, mobile phone companies, internet servers and so on.

My own bank seems to know more about me than I do. And they use this information to try to sell me all sorts of extras. Fortunately, I have a secret banking weapon: I get my wife to ring up and cancel whatever foolish new service I have been soft enough to buy into.

Another aspect of surveillance is offered by younger generations. Thanks to websites such as MySpace, YouTube or Bebo, children and teenagers willingly surrender their privacy in a friendly orgy of sharing, swapping photos and personal snippets. So perhaps today's teenagers will grow up with a different view of what constitutes private and public.

This chimes with what already passes for television these days. Big Brother and its all-revealing ilk have turned surveillance into public entertainment. You will have noticed that they are not exactly short of volunteers, all too willing to reveal every tedious detail about themselves.