In the UK if you want to buy food in the supermarket you have to have a HD video camera pointed in your face (often two cameras). When all major supermarkets introduced these cameras a couple of years back no one even discussed it, or thought it was odd, because here there is no assumption of privacy.

I was telling a coworker recently that I always use a VPN while browsing the internet. He was genuinely confused, and was asking why I would care about privacy unless I have something to hide. And this isn't just one person. I've had similar reactions when I've told people I only use signal, or refuse to use cloud storage, or won't list employment history on LinkedIn for privacy reasons. I get that I have an extreme preference for privacy, but people in the UK don't even understand why someone like myself value privacy.

This attitude is also adopted by our leaders and businesses, who by various means, mass surveil the public, typically citing "safety".

The issue with the UK isn't just that our government don't value privacy, it's that as a people we don't even understand the value of privacy.