How far is the UK behind USA?

I would say the UK is further along that route than the US,we still have assault weapons in our homes.Say what you will about American guns,in this issue it's a 10,000 lb gorilla.
Also the new data center the NSA is putting in Utah to correlate all the data will present a closer step to that effort.Uk 's landmass is smaller so a surveillance system wouldn't have as much to cover as well as population count.