Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has set the ball rolling for what he promises will be the biggest shake up in political reform since the Great Reform Act of 1832.

CCTV will be “properly regulated”, and databases holding innocent people’s DNA will be restricted, he said.

Speaking last month at Islington and City College, London, the Liberal Democrat leader said he wanted to "transform our politics so the state has far less control over you, and you have far more control over the state".

This will include scrapping the ID card scheme and the National Identity Register. It would also mean the Contact Point database that holds information on 11 million children, would be made obsolete.

His pledge, or “power revolution,” was welcomed by the British Security Industry Association yesterday, which said regulation paved the way for the “development of national CCTV standards.”

Andy George from OSS Security said it's "good" that CCTV regulation was high on the coalition government's to-do list. He said: "All that has been missing is effective regulation. Without that, it's little wonder that 80% of CCTV images are assessed by the police as 'not fit for purpose.'”

He went on to say that many CCTV systems did not comply with the Data Protection Act (DPA).

"Our compnay routinely hear of cases where law abiding citizens have been refused access to their recorded CCTV images in the mistaken belief that it would be in contravention of the DPA. In fact, the exact opposite is the case.

“You are entitled to a copy of any images of you that are captured on CCTV operated by a business or organisation, subject to reasonable conditions. That's because recognisable images are just as sensitive as personal information held in a database."

Industry information estimates that there are between five and six million CCTV cameras in use in the UK today.

You may not realize it but a picture of your own home is very likely available on the Internet thanks to the popular Google Street View map program.

I’m a big fan of Google. They’ve done a great job on organizing the world’s information. All their tools and apps like Gmail, calendar and docs are fully functional and mobile. They seemed to have taken the fight out of technology with these tools.

Then, there is Google Street View. Zoom, rotate and pan through street level photos of cities around the world. I remember the day Google Street View came down my street. I live on a private dead end and they came right down my driveway. They got stuck trying to turn around and we had to move a car for them.

Then, a few months later there it was on Google Street View. It’s an ambitious attempt at mapping the world just like you were there yourself.

So how does this affect you? For one thing, it allows anyone anywhere to gain intelligence about your street, fences, gates, driveway and information about your home and in general scope out your neighborhood. Certainly someone can simply just drive-by and use a video camera or take pictures and Google Street View makes it even easier.

But what if Google captured much more than a picture?

Now Google admits they messed up a little. An ambitious Google Street View engineer plugged some code in their data collection process that they planned on using to collect data on “Public Wi-Fi Hotspots”.

The code pulled more the just hotspots. There could have been enough data pulled to steal someone's identity.

Protect yourself by making sure your wireless router is protected with a password.

When you have an unsecured wireless connection, it's just like leaving the front door to your home open and inviting the world to come inside to take a peek.

Google says its Street View cars will stay in park until the problem is fixed.

Content expressed does not represent the thoughts and opinions of OSS Security unless explicitly indicated. Source: Robert Siciliano, personal security expert to Home Security Source on Fox Boston.