Privacy group in UK fears rubbish bin spies

London: Monitored by millions of cameras and spied on by a secretive domestic intelligence network, Britons could be forgiven for feeling up in arms over the latest threat to their privacy: Intelligent garbage bins that can monitor how much they throw out.

Although the technology is already nearly a decade old, a UK privacy rights group says the number of local authorities fitting their trash bins with sensors of some kind has risen dramatically in the past year — affecting at least 2.6 million British households.

Big Brother Watch says the practice could lead to Britons being charged for how much they throw out — and effectively allow the government to go through their garbage.

"Placing microchips in bins capable of monitoring the content of weight of household refuse produces yet another piece of data for the state on an individual's private life it has no right to have," the group said in a report published yesterday.

Microchips were first fitted into British trash bins eight years ago, and the debate over whether the state has the right to weigh or otherwise analyse residents' refuse has surfaced periodically since.

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In 2006, then-British environment minister Ben Bradshaw told Britons they might someday have to pay for the amount of waste they produce — arguing that the practice would push people to waste less, promote recycling and reduce pressure on landfills. His successor David Miliband moved to lift a ban which prevented local officials from offering financial incentives for recycling — further clearing the way for the use of garbage-monitoring microchips.

The nature of the chips and their exact purpose vary across the country: Some of the chips are intended to sense the weight of the garbage piled into a bin. Others are meant to track the whereabouts of the bin itself, or check whether it has been emptied.

None of the chips are used to charge residents in so-called "pay-as-you-throw" plans — at least so far.