This political history studies the phenomenal growth of the modern British state’s interest in collecting, collating and deploying population data. It dates this biopolitical data turn in British politics to the arrival of the Labour government in 1964. It analyses government’s increased desire to know the population, the impact this has had on British political culture and the institutions and systems introduced or modified to achieve this. It probes the political struggles around these initiatives to show that despite setbacks along the way and regardless of party, all British governments since the mid-1960s have accepted that data is the key to modern politics and have pursued it relentlessly.
Introduction / Chapter 1: The British Government’s Approach to Population Data c1945-64 / Chapter 2: Government 1964-1979 and the Growth of the Modern Data State / Chapter 3: Government Data Systems 1964-1979 / Chapter 4: Government 1979-97: Developing and Re-purposing the Data State / Chapter 5: The British People, Government Data and the 1984 Data Protection Act / Chapter 6: Data Systems 1979-1997 (1), The Electoral Register, The Poll Tax Register and Data Linkage / Chapter 7: Data Systems 1979-1997 (2), Driving Licences and ID Cards / Chapter 8: Data Systems 1979-1997 (3), The Government Data Network, the Information Society Initiative and government.direct / Chapter 9: Government Data Security, the British People and Computers, and the 1998 Data Protection Act / Conclusion
Kevin Manton teaches History and Politics at SOAS and Birkbeck, London. He researches modern British history and is the author of Population Registers and Privacy in Britain, 1936-1982 (2019).
