As I've said before, the Conservative position on surveillance and civil liberties is a classic "good but could be better". The (dread phrase of the moment) direction of travel is good, but there's no pledge to get rid of the database behind ID cards, which is of course more important than the card itself, and no timetable for the removal of innocent people from the DNA database, etcetera.
However, Big Brother Watch wholly approves of the announcement at conference that the Party intends to name and shame prolific criminals.
This is a debate about balance, not absolutes. The rights of the law-abiding majority not to be victims of crime must be weighed in that balance, and given more weight than they are at present. Those who would be affected by this legislation will have been convicted on multiple occasions. The focus in the human rights debate has long been on the "rights" of such guilty people at the expense of the rights and needs of the innocent. There is of course a powerful privacy point to be made on their behalf (and the issue of how one can reform and get off the list of people suitable for naming and shaming needs very careful attention) but overall in my view this is a good example of the rights of the well-behaved majority prevailing, as they should.
In recent times, there have been many unjust incursions into our civil liberties. This isn't one of them.
