You mean the time when the UK concquered the whole world and formed "The empire on which the sun never sets"? Yeees... UK was forced into globalization xD
Alas, any country where "doing anything unless it's forbidden" results in a clusterf* that the USA is today, and it has nothing to do with trust or being "civilized"
As for breaches - you are aware that the civilized society can have national IDs - plastic one, issued by the state that are used for... well... IDentification that don't require uber-surviliance and centralizing data worse than in China? Just because UK does something stupid (and it's on a record roll past decades) doesn't mean that the concept of ID is wrong... For example in Poland and in Spain you can easily get doctors appointment just by showing up and waving your ID…