One of the details mentioned in the article is that the ICO (the UK data protection regulator) has reportedly already given its blessing to what is going on her

One of the details mentioned in the article is that the ICO (the UK data protection regulator) has reportedly already given its blessing to what is going on here. That's interesting because it suggests that either the nature of the system and any potential risks it brings are being overstated by its critics or the public service that explicitly exists to regulate such systems isn't effectively limiting the power of the state where it should. Those are very different situations and I don't think there's enough objective information in the article to tell which is happening.