NO2ID Birmingham

So far so good

2010-06-30T16:11:00.004+01:00

Mission accomplished?

It would seem so. The fightback by the supporters of ID cards has began, yet all they have done so far is make noises and remind us all why they lost the argument. But if you are interested in a broader approach to civil liberties you will already be aware that this is just one important battle won, there are many others.

So what of the future? Well first we say thank you for your support and ask you to remain alert until the bill related to ID cards passes into law. And then still remain alert! There will always be threats from the state to civil liberties but a well organised protest group can achieve results.

It's not over yet.

2010-05-18T12:12:00.006+01:00

Phil Booth writes:

NO2ID is now into its second phase: having won over the political establishment, we need to drive home the advantage and finish the job. You, and everyone who made the NO2ID Pledge, knew that this second phase could have been mass resistance. We can feel rightfully proud (and relieved) that it is not.

So this is good. Campaigning is clearly going to be different in this second phase, in all likelihood less confrontational - but no less important for that. What's really important right now is that folks get in touch with their new MP - see my P.S. for one very good reason to do so.

In coming weeks, we have to make sure that the details of the Freedom Bill are correct, and that they'll have the necessary effect. There's good reason to be optimistic, but we'll need to keep the pressure up to ensure the promised repeals and reforms are swiftly enacted and properly enforced.

We already know that Whitehall has been preparing for this new phase for some time. It's unlikely to give up its various empires and pet projects without a fight. But, working together, we have shown we can win.

Looking forward to a real celebration, to mark the Royal Assent of the
Freedom (Great Repeal) Act 2010...

Thank you again, Phil Booth, National Coordinator.

P.S. A Freedom of Information request published this week shows that Connecting for Health did not just sent out 10 million 'Patient Information Packs' (the letter about Summary Care Records) in the run-up to the election, as previously reported. It sent 30 MILLION!

NO2ID victory!

2010-05-12T17:56:00.004+01:00

The following announcement is on the Home Office site already. Brilliant.

IDENTITY CARDS

Both Parties that now form the new Government stated in their manifestos that they will cancel Identity Cards and the National Identity Register. We will announce in due course how this will be achieved. Applications can continue to be made for ID cards but we would advise anyone thinking of applying to wait for further announcements.

Until Parliament agrees otherwise, identity cards remain valid and as such can still be used as an identity document and for travel within Europe. We will update you with further information as soon as we have it.

Sounds good - so far.

2010-05-12T10:40:00.011+01:00

The Lib-Dem/Tory coalition promises a major reform of civil liberties. According to the BBC:

The parties agree to implement a full programme of measures to reverse the substantial erosion of civil liberties under the Labour Government and roll back state intrusion.

This will include:

# A Freedom or Great Repeal Bill.

# The scrapping of ID card scheme, the National Identity register, the next generation of biometric passports and the Contact Point Database.

# Outlawing the finger-printing of children at school without parental permission.

# The extension of the scope of the Freedom of Information Act to provide greater transparency.

# Adopting the protections of the Scottish model for the DNA database.

# The protection of historic freedoms through the defence of trial by jury.

# The restoration of rights to non-violent protest.

# The review of libel laws to protect freedom of speech.

# Safeguards against the misuse of anti-terrorism legislation.

# Further regulation of CCTV.

# Ending of storage of internet and email records without good reason.

# A new mechanism to prevent the proliferation of unnecessary new criminal offences.

Photocopier danger

2010-05-11T00:19:00.005+01:00

Photocopiers contain hard drives that store all the images that have been copied. It is possible to pay for security methods to deal with this. I doubt the UK government knows about this. Watch the video from CBS News as reported by Big Brother Watch.

Surveillance and feline aggression.

2010-05-08T15:05:00.004+01:00

No doubt eventually a caring coalition will emerge and enact a law to protect us all from dangerous cats.

Labyrinths

2010-05-04T21:25:00.007+01:00

If you were relieved that the Lib-Dems and Tories have pledged to scrap ContactPoint, then the summary of databases involving children compiled by ARCH (Action On Children's Rights) makes sombre reading. The Privacy Guide for Parents details the state's recording of the minutiae of every child's life. The scary aspect of this is that the aim was probably benign and well-meaning.

Civil liberties mentioned!

2010-04-26T12:08:00.004+01:00

At last we have a discussion on civil liberties, at the Scottish Leaders' Debate, see here. It's quite simplistic and repetitive, but does mention ID cards and the DNA database. However, at least the subject has been raised.

Ask your candidates

2010-04-24T16:52:00.006+01:00

Two weeks from now Parliament will have changed. Whoever forms the next government, over a quarter of MPs will be new to the job. Many may not know how much the database state matters to their constituents, or how deeply it will affect them.

They need to be informed and you can help. Starting now.

Over the next fortnight make it a point to ask your local candidates one of NO2ID's seven questions for candidates at a hustings meeting or in a personal letter or e-mail. Listen carefully to what they say, and let them know you'll be following up. One of them will be your MP and needs to know you care.

NO2ID is looking for candidates to have their own opinions on these questions. We aren't seeking to punish people for giving 'wrong' answers or to antagonise them. What we are hoping is to get them outside party lines and looking at the issues for themselves. Even if they disagree with us now, a willingness to think about it will make them approachable in the next parliament.

See previous blog for seven questions you might like to choose from and here is an easy way to e-mail your candidate.

NO2ID Questions for Candidates: General Election 2010

2010-04-23T10:12:00.003+01:00

1) The National Identity Scheme is not just about ID cards. It is built on a National Identity Register, a set of linked databases behind the cards holding an archive of personal information. The Identity Cards Act 2006 provides for lifelong control of personal identity by the state and data-sharing without the knowledge or consent of the individual. The Act permits any official document to be designated, compelling registration for anyone who needs that document. Though the UK is under no obligation to add fingerprints to the passport, the Home Office intends to make fingerprinting and joining the National Identity Register compulsory for anyone who applies for a passport from 2012.

If elected, would you vote to repeal the Identity Cards Act 2006? Would you also oppose moves to make a database of passport holders and their fingerprints a feature of the British passport?

2) Medical confidentiality is fundamental to public health. If people feel that what they say to their doctor will not remain private, they may fail to disclose vital information or avoid treatment, assisting the spread of disease. By seizing all medical records and making them centrally accessible to hundreds of thousands of people - in the NHS and outside - the electronic Care Records System destroys the assurance of confidentiality. The Department for Health is seeking now to upload from GP’s surgeries sensitive data, including chronic conditions and prescriptions. It is using a fraudulent definition of ‘consent’ in order to do it, with heavy promotion using public money, of claims about benefits that are not supported by evidence. Patients are made to jump through unnecessary hoops in order to exercise their right to opt out.

If elected, would you work to ensure that control of medical records remains with patients and their own doctors, and that they are shared only with properly informed consent?

3) The National DNA Database contains the profiles of almost one million people who have not been convicted of any crime. A few notorious cases are quoted to justify this, but detailed examination usually shows they could have been solved using proper police procedure and a database only of convicted criminals. Treating the innocent as criminal suspects corrodes relations between the police and the public, and undermines confidence in the quite proper use of DNA detection.

How should the DNA database be operated? If elected, would you vote to remove immediately and automatically all profiles of unconvicted people from the DNA database?

4) ContactPoint, an index of every child (and family) in England and Wales is now operating, despite technical and security faults. It identifies the most vulnerable by flagging those using sensitive services and is accessible to hundreds of thousands of people. It is too big ever to be secure. The existence of a "shielding" scheme, denied to most families, suggests that in fact ContactPoint itself is a potential danger to children. Putting record-keeping on a database can’t correct the failures of child protection to act, which is the cause of the most notorious tragedies.

Are the hundreds of millions spent on ContactPoint and related databases not better spent in other ways?

5) The creation of the Independent Safeguarding Authority means a massive expansion of police checking. The Authority can ban you from your career for accusations, or even for its own idea of 'risk factors' in your legal behaviour. Lifelong retention of arrest records by the police means ‘enhanced’ Criminal Records checks may treat you as a convicted criminal simply for being arrested – affecting your potential employment and volunteering, with no right of appeal. Mass checking feeds suspicion and undermines trust, but there is no evidence that it prevents any sort of crime.

If elected, what would you do to reform vetting and barring schemes?

6) Despite denying plans for a central database of communications data, the Home Office set up a new directorate just this January to push forward the £2 billion Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP). The intent is store details of everyone you call, text or e-mail and which websites you visit – providing a record of clues to your religious and political beliefs, your sexual interests and personal relationships, your financial and medical worries – ‘just in case’ they become of interest to the authorities. Phone tapping and opening mail is so sensitive that it is a power exercised only on the approval of the Home Secretary, and cannot even be mentioned in court. But collecting communications data, and building techniques for them to be arbitrarily investigated, makes much more available to be known about every one of us without any form of warrant or independent oversight.

If elected, would you vote to ensure that access to any form of personal communications is only permitted to formal investigations under warrant?

7) Tens of millions of law-abiding citizens are being routinely monitored as they travel, on the roads by Automatic Number Plate Recognition – without any legal basis – and in the air or by sea when detailed passenger records are passed to the Home Office’s e-Borders data centre even as you leave the country. Vast quantities of information, including your financial details from ticketing, and pictures of who you are travelling with, are being kept. For five years in the case of road data, and ten years at least for e-Borders. It is passed around government agencies, and even sent abroad. Such records are used to match records with ‘intelligence’ (which usually means guesses) from other sources – exposing unsuspecting citizens to suspicion, arbitrary penalties, and worse.

What limits would you place on the database surveillance of those travelling abroad and within the UK?

Ask Nick.

2010-04-22T16:30:00.009+01:00

I think most people would agree that, of all the parties, the Liberal-Democrat manifesto promises on civil liberties are the best. However, these are domestic policies and we need to know their views on proposed EU legislation. Liberal Democrat MEPs voted for the fast track European Arrest Warrant, under which Britons have been sent abroad to face trial, sometimes for fairly trivial offences. The Tories voted against this.

The European Union has put forward a proposal, the extended European Evidence Warrant, which would be an EU-wide search warrant that could be issued in any state, and which would be binding on all police forces. Warrants could also be issued which would force police to intercept phone calls, set up CCTV surveillance, monitor bank accounts, and even demand body samples such as fingerprints or DNA. See here.

This European Commission Green Paper proposes going much further than the European Arrest Warrant and is in essence, an expansion of Ripa powers to every state in the EU.

Naturally our old friend, Home Affairs Minister, Meg Hillier says:

We would in principle support a new and comprehensive instrument based on mutual recognition that covers all types of evidence.

Dominic Grieve, the shadow justice minister, said that a Conservative government would ensure that Britain did not opt into the scheme:

Civil liberties campaigners are right to be concerned about this extension of state power across national boundaries.

We need to ask Nick his views on this subject.

Email your parliamentary candidates.

2010-04-21T20:41:00.005+01:00

Thanks to Police state we have a list of many of the grassroots campaigns attempting to give some power and influence to us, the voters.

Write To Them is an excellent tool. Send all of the candidates in your area an email to see where they stand on a particular issue.

An unhealthy approach to data?

2010-04-20T19:54:00.010+01:00

Whilst you are, hopefully, busily writing letters to the press and PPCs please note that a local patient record system is under development called the Interim Electronic Patient Record (iEPR), see here. At least it is news to me and I find that you can download an opt out letter. We are told that:

The Heart of Birmingham iEPR is an electronic patient record that contains information extracted from your GP and Hospital records and makes them available to clinical staff wherever they are treating you locally.

We are also told that:

The Heart of Birmingham (iEPR) and the National Care Record Summary (NCRS) share some similarities, such as the ability to share clinical information and robust controls over access to this data. However; the iEPR is not part of the NCRS project and does not provide information to the national system. The HoB iEPR is a local system, only available to patients registered with a Heart of Birmingham Primary Care Practice.

Presumably other trusts have a similar system. If you don't want to participate then fill in the form. Naturally there is logic in such a system BUT we should be told about it, asked whether we wish to participate and not merely given the facility to opt out when we haven't even been told the system exists and find out about it by chance!

That's it folks.

2010-04-18T23:01:00.011+01:00

The Green Party's 50 page manifesto gives detailed policies in a variety of areas but makes little mention of civil liberties: they would:

Oppose ID cards as they will not reduce or prevent crime. We also have grave concerns over the development of a national dataset, including detailed biometric data, which has potential for the infringement of civil liberties.

UKIP make no mention of civil liberties or the database state and the BNP don't even have a manifesto! Update- The BNP rejects ID cards as an undesirable manifestation of the surveillance society.

Tory versus Lib Dem manifestos

2010-04-14T16:38:00.010+01:00

The Tories have pledged to: scale back the database state and protect the privacy of the public's information. However, they are short on detail and some pledges are somewhat ambiguous.

They say they will scrap the National Identity Register, ID cards and ContactPoint, good, no change here.

They state that the indefinite retention of innocent people's DNA is unacceptable, yet DNA data provides a useful tool for solving crimes - cryptic or what? They will also reform the criminal records system so it protects children without destroying trust, but don't say how.

The Lib Dems have pledged to scrap the National Identity Register, ID cards, ContactPoint and the DNA retention of innocent people. Good.

They would also regulate CCTV (somehow) and stop children being fingerprinted at school without parental permission.

They would end plans to store e-mail and internet records without good cause.

They also state that they would scrap new passports with additional biometric data. No fingerprints in passports then? Excellent.

So, why not ask your Lib Dem canvasser whether they will definitely change government policy as regards passports and annoy the EU and what they would do about the 'vetting and barring' database?

Why not ask your Tory canvasser to explain why so little detail is included in their civil liberties' policy, despite excellent rhetoric?

Child safety or guesswork?

2010-04-13T20:00:00.014+01:00

A FOI request by the Sun has revealed that 15,000 innocent people have been labelled criminals in the past six years. This equates to seven mistakes a day by the Criminal Records Bureau.

The victims discovered they had been branded sex offenders, violent thugs or fraudsters when they had a CRB check before a new job. Many went through lengthy appeals to clear their names.Most of the bungles involved CRB checks being mixed up, or incorrect details being given out by staff.Others involved police releasing information which was recorded wrongly when an offence was committed.

The Conservative manifesto states that the ISA's 'vetting and barring' regime would be scaled back to a 'common sense level but would retain the CRB check for those working with children. This rather depends on one's definition of 'common sense'.

Over 21,000 alleged sex crimes involving children under 16 were reported to police between 2008 - 2009, however we do not know whether sexual assaults by those working with children have increased or decreased since CRB checks were introduced, as central Home Office statistics are not collated. How many such attacks have been perpetrated by adults who have had a clear CRB check? Surely it would be easy and sensible to begin to compile such statistics and then these figures could be compared to the numbers of adults who have had lives and careers ruined by mistakes, false allegations and rumour. Not to mention the creation of mistrust and suspicion between adults and children.

It sounds silly but, surely the logical conclusion is that someone who has failed the enhanced CRB check should not be allowed to look after their own children?

Lucky veterans?

2010-04-12T16:16:00.007+01:00

Whatever one's view of Labour's wars, one of the ostensible reasons for our forces fighting, and being maimed and killed, in foreign lands was the creation of democracy and freedom. In Labour's manifesto we find the curious pledge to introduce a free identity card to access benefits for service people leaving the armed forces, see here. Presumably the party thinks it would be doing veterans a favour.

Another pledge is the right for people to petition local authorities for more cameras (but not to take them down).

I'm still in the dark

2010-04-09T21:49:00.013+01:00

I recently reported that the Birmingham City Council's free (taxpayer funded) magazine called Forward was delivered to my house and that, on page 13, I was informed about the council's scheme to ostensibly improve services to customers.

I am told that I am to have a single customer record - name, address, date of birth, gender, together with unspecified information which can be used to confirm my identity. The single customer record will act as an index to other customer information about me. My data will be perfectly safe - all in one place.

Also on page 13, I am told that I have the right to request that Birmingham City Council stops using my information in relation to any council service, including the single customer record.

I did this and duly contacted - DP.Contacts@birmingham.gov.uk They replied immediately asking for my DOB, yet ...... since then ..........

despite four requests asking for confirmation that my request had been complied with and, nearly a month later, I am still waiting....... next time I'll cc the council leader, Nick Whitby.

They Work For You - occasionally.

2010-04-08T22:52:00.011+01:00

We find that, despite more than 20,000 constituents contacting their MPs prior to the debate on the Digital Economy Bill, only 40 of our honourable members could be bothered to attend and this number at one point fell to 15, see here. Only 236 MPs voted on the bill, giving a quorum of just more than one-third of MPs for some of the most contentious legislation the government has introduced in 13 years in power.

TalkTalk director Andrew Heany said in a blog post, "If we are instructed to disconnect an account due to alleged copyright infringement we will refuse to do so and tell the rights holders we will see them in court." See here.

Election 2010

2010-04-07T20:08:00.008+01:00

The BBC has a summary of the election pledges regarding civil liberties of the three main parties. There are, however, quite a few omissions, such as: the intercept modernisation programme, NHS 'spine', ANPR, the ISA's vetting and barring register, ContactPoint etc etc. Make sure you ask canvassers about some of these points if you live in a constituency where politicians can be bothered to call round.

Motorist of good character sought.

2010-04-06T20:18:00.007+01:00

The Automatic Number Plate Recognition ANPR database is busily amassing 14 million images daily. The records not only include details of car registrations, but often photographs of drivers and front-seat passengers. The records are held for at least two years without drivers’ knowledge or permission, see here.

Liberty is seeking a motorist of good character who objects to having their daily movements stored on the ANPR database to bring a test case. Shami Chakrabarti said:

It’s bad enough that images and movements of millions of innocent motorists are being stored for years on end, that the police are doing this with no legislative basis shows a contempt for parliament, personal privacy and the law.

The ANPR network is now linked to more than 10,000 CCTV cameras and eventually the system will allow police to track the movements of all the vehicles in the UK at any time.

Guess who started all this - yes our old friend ACPO Ltd.

Write to your MP

2010-04-02T21:40:00.008+01:00

The Open Rights Group has teamed up with 38 degrees to produce a site whereby you can write to your MP to protest against the rushing through of the Digital Economy Bill before the election without proper debate, see here. The government will be able to disconnect you from the internet, without a warrant, if a member of your family continues to download films and music which are deemed illicit. Thereafter, by mission creep, what else might be considered illicit and copyright?

Safe in their hands!

2010-03-31T19:50:00.013+01:00

The personal details of 9,000 school pupils have been stolen from the home of a Barnet Council worker, see here.

Twenty unauthorised and unencrypted CDs and memory sticks were stolen. Information included: pupil's names, gender, date of birth, addresses, phone numbers, unique identification number, free school meals eligibility, in-care indicator, language, gifted and talented indicator, mode of travel to school, entry date to school, special educational needs, school, attainment data for English, maths and science at end of Year 9 and attendance rate.

Chief Executive Nick Walkley made the gnomic statement:
"This should not be a case for concern relating to safeguarding."

The data was evidently part of a student survey for the government to compare educational development within broad groups. Were the parents consulted? I doubt it. Parents were not consulted about ContactPoint and its related databases, which contain even more sensitive data. One hopes there was no data sharing.

Schools are routinely taking children's fingerprints without permission from their parents, see here.

As many as 3,500 schools take biometric data from pupils to speed up basic administration such as buying canteen lunches or borrowing library books. Dr Emmeline Taylor, who conducted a study on surveillance of pupils funded by Salford University, has revealed that 3,500 schools in the UK - one in seven - are estimated to be using fingerprint technology.

A 2007 survey by the Liberal Democrats found that out of 285 schools using fingerprint scanners, only 48 had first sought parental consent.

Children are subjected to CCTV in their schools, many have to give their thumbprint to obtain a meal or borrow a book, their personal data is collected in vast swathes and lost .... and we are expected to believe that this is for the safety of our children.

Cartoon - on the occasion of the 20th Birthday of Privacy International.

Compulsory is the new voluntary

2010-03-30T13:03:00.008+01:00

Now we all knew that the government's aim was for ID cards to become compulsory by stealth and here is Alan Johnson announcing this fact clearly, see here.

"The provisions of the Identity Cards Act 2006 will be amended by further primary legislation, so that everyone aged 16 and over who applies for a British passport will have the choice of being issued with an identity card or a passport (or both documents) and for their identity details, including facial image and fingerprint biometrics, to be recorded on the same National Identity Register."

Last year Kable research found that scrapping identity cards and fingerprinting for passports would save £3.08bn over a decade, whereas scrapping the cards but retaining fingerprinting would reduce the saving to £2.2bn. The government plans to require all 10 fingerprints for passport and ID applications, although only two will be held on the document's chip.

Ask any Lib-Dem or Conservative canvassers what they intend to do about fingerprints in passports. (They both claim they intend to scrap the NIR and ID cards.)

Careless disclosure costs reputations.

2010-03-29T10:17:00.017+01:00

From August members of the public will be able to make applications for disclosure from police records about anybody who is in contact with children. It is claimed that the Home Secretary’s decision was justified by Home Office research - this relating to a tiny pilot study.

Hawktalk reveals the fundamental flaws in this egregious scheme.

The procedure involves four steps:
(1) Any person can make a request for information about a "subject"-
(2) Police then do a trawl of PNC, sex offender and local criminal intelligence data
(3) A preliminary risk assessment is made -
(4) Enquiries which do not meet the selection criteria are rejected – others move to the "application" for disclosure procedure,
(a valid enquiry had to pass two thresholds: (1) the subject has unsupervised access to children and (2) the subject lived in the force area.)

Hawtalk makes several important points and it is well worth reading the whole article.

Table 7 of the research report indicates that over half of applications did not have unsupervised contact with children. Hence step(4) of the police procedure should have been step(2); the research made no comment on this anomaly.

The Home Office Research Department has to be made independent of the Home Office.

Should personal data be retained on criminal intelligence systems if the subject has no criminal record and was not previously known to the police?

Such information might then be passed to employers to assess. Now ask a simple question: if you were an employer with a short list of two job-applicants – one of which has this kind of query against his or her name and the other hasn’t - which one do you employ?

More ID card creep.

2010-03-24T11:43:00.013Z

A very unpleasant little amendment to the Licensing Act (2003) is in front of Ministers for approval as a Statutory Instrument (SI). It is very rare for a SI to be amended or changed - so, unless it is rejected when presented to Parliament, it will pass on the 6th of April. See here.

The SI in question is there to address binge drinking by restricting licensees' abilities to offer discounted booze and encourage heavy drinking. Part 4 (2) of this particular SI refers to a licensee's policy, and reads as follows:

The policy must require individuals who appear to the responsible person to be under 18 years of age (or such older age as may be specified in the policy) to produce on request, before being served alcohol, identification bearing their photograph, date of birth and a holographic mark .

This effectively forces pub landlords to demand passport, ID card or driving licence as proof of age and will probably cause a boom in fake ID card sales and theft/loss of identity documents. Naturally the young will be told how more convenient it would be to get a national ID card.

This is another back-door attempt to undermine civil liberties and bolster the National ID Service. Why not write to your MP to make them aware of what's hidden in the small print, and demand that the SI is redrafted before it's accepted.

There are contactless proof of age card systems such as Touch2ID that simply contain a biometric hash of the bearer's fingerprint and which cannot be used for identity fraud. However, one might ask why there is such mania for proof of age? It certainly hasn't prevented a rise in alcohol consumption amongst the young; it is simply yet another attempt to counter the side effects of the total liberalisation of alcohol sale and consumption.

Birmingham to get ID as well as data sharing.

2010-03-22T10:59:00.008Z

Civil servants are still busily at work spending our money and planning for the years ahead, seemingly oblivious to the upcoming general election. The two main opposition parties and, as far as I can tell, all the minor parties, are opposed to ID cards. Yet we are still spending £230,000 a day on developing this scheme as well as the £1.3 million already having been spent on marketing and advertising. We are now told that Birmingham residents are to be targeted, see here.

The spin is that ID cards can be used instead of a passport for travel in the EU, the reality is that you need a passport as well. The spin is that young people can use it as a proof of age card the reality is that these only cost £10 whereas ID costs £30 accompanied by a lifetime of fees, data-sharing and penalties.

Make sure you ask any political campaigner about ID cards and the database state and ask precisely what they intend to do. Remember, Birmingham is a Lib-Dem/Conservative coalition yet we are all to be given a single customer record and have our data shared, see here. Our EU passports are to eventually contain fingerprints – so if Labour loses the election the fight is still on.

Opting out is easy.

2010-03-20T21:27:00.014Z

The Summary Care Records (SCR) database - which is central to the government's plans to create health records for 50 million people - contains inaccuracies and omissions that make it difficult for doctors to trust it as a single source of truth, according to a confidential draft report. Researchers at University College, London, found examples where the Summary Care Records central database failed to indicate a patient's allergies or adverse reactions to drugs, and listed "current" medication that the patient wasn't taking. The database also indicated allergies or adverse reactions to drugs the patient did not have.

The researchers found no evidence that incomplete or inaccurate data on the SCR database had led to patients coming to harm - because doctors did not trust the new system as a single source of truth, and took extra time to double-check details of medications and allergies. See here.

The research was commissioned by NHS Connecting for Health which has continued the scheme without waiting for the reports to be completed. So you have paid an extra three quarters of a million pounds in addition to the £12.7bn cost of the National Programme for IT [NPfIT]. About 1.2 million summary care records have already been created and only a tiny proportion of patients have opted out.

So make sure you opt out..

The lucky poor. Free ID cards!

2010-03-17T21:09:00.007Z

The British public bails out the banks and it is then suggested that they could the be used to help curtail our civil liberties.

Kitty Donaldson writes in US magazine Business Week:

The Labour government may ask U.K. banks and supermarkets to subsidize its national identity-card program, paying for documents for poorer customers to attract business.

Home Office minister Meg Hillier said companies might offer to buy the £30 pound cards for people who wouldn’t pay for them otherwise. She named Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group, both part state-owned, as candidates.

"I am keen to hear from business, banks do give incentives to people to open bank accounts. If they are doing that for some clients, would they think of doing that for other groups? Over a lifetime they do make money out of people."

The government’s £4.6 billion programme may see fingerprint readers installed in banks, post offices, courts and schools as a means of checking people are who they say they are. Hillier also said the government has heard suggestions from local authorities that ID cards could replace passes providing free local bus travel for the over-60s!

What a come down for the previous rationale for ID cards as a method for combating terrorism and organised crime.

Secure information hub?

2010-03-15T22:28:00.004Z

Birmingham City Council (BCC) tells residents that it is improving its customer service. It says it is changing the way it uses your personal information to improve services to you as a customer. The hub will contain a single customer record about you - your name, address, date of birth, gender, together with unspecified information which can be used to confirm your identity. The single customer record will act as an index to other customer information about you. Your data will be perfectly safe - all in one place. This is, presumably, transformational government. You haven't been asked whether you want this and opting out (as far as this is possible) means you have to read page 13 of magazine that has been delivered, have an e-mail and understand what you are opting out of!

You have the right to request that BCC stops using your information in relation to any council service, including the single customer record.

Contact - DP.Contacts@birmingham.gov.uk

What is the definition of optional?

2010-03-13T17:11:00.014Z

A report from the US internet security company Cryptohippie puts the UK at number six in the list of the world's most repressive regimes in terms of the electronic surveillance of its citizens, see here. The following are two further examples of how the authorities are keeping an eye on us all.

Firstly, Birmingham Airport has introduced new face recognition gates (optional for the time being) which can be used by adults with a biometric passport from the UK or EU. To enter the gate the passenger places their passport on a reader which reads the passport data and checks them against national and international watch lists, the passenger's face is then matched against the digital image stored on the passport. This will feed into the eBorders and ‘Advanced Passenger Information’ (API) systems that already spread tens of millions of travellers’ personal details around the world.

Secondly we have Clubscan, an ID card scanning system produced by IDScan Biometrics Limited. It takes scanned images of clubbers' ID documents and stores their personal details, for the purpose of age verification, identifying barred members and identifying individuals to the authorities in the case of criminal incidents.

UK licensing authorities are increasingly requiring nightclubs to scan and retain clubbers' ID details.

The aptly named Soviet Union bar in Consett, County Durham is proposing such a No ID No Entry scheme, see here. This is the bright idea of a local police inspector.

He says: "Consett is not particularly rough, but this is all about creating a safer environment for people who want to go out on the town." Naturally the local population haven't been consulted.

The manufacturer claims that "Clubscan is voluntary: You are not obliged to permit a venue to scan your identification through clubscan. Though it is unclear how this might interact with a club's right to refuse entry.

London - NO2ID day of action. Can you help?

2010-03-11T20:45:00.005Z

We're having a London day of action this Saturday, the 13th March, in response to the roll out of ID cards to young Londoners aged 16-24. NO2ID groups will be coming from all over the country to help out, so it should be a really good day.

We'll be leafleting/collecting signatures at tube stations, dropping leaflets at Halls of Residence and also doing a run of 'alternative' shops, which are likely to have a lot of customers in the relevant age range. Afterwards obviously, curry! Please bring a travelcard/Oyster Card if you have one.

We'll be meeting at 11.30 at the Ossulston Street Tenants and Residents Hall, entrance on Ossulston Street opposite Brill Place. The postcode is NW1 1EU but please be aware that Google Maps pins the Hall slightly wrongly, look for the entrance on Ossulston Street where there will be copious NO2ID signage. The Hall is equidistant between Kings Cross and Euston Stations.

Phil Booth, our National Coordinator will give a talk on the most recent updates to the Identity scheme before we send people out and about to leaflet/collect signatures.
Please come and join us, no experience is necessary, we'll have jobs for people at every level. If you have a NO2ID T-shirt, please bring it along. If you don't and would like one please let me know and I'll bring one along in your size, we charge £5 per shirt to active people, (which is cost price).

My telephone number is 07500 836 461, please bring it with you on the day and feel free to call if you need to clarify anything.

At the end of the day we'll all go for a Curry on Drumond Street.

Look forward to seeing you there.

Matty Mitford NO2ID Local Groups Coordinator

e-mail - local.groups@no2id.net

Facebook site - Opt Out Now.

2010-03-10T21:10:00.009Z

A facebook page has been set up called- Protect Your Medical Confidentiality. This relates to 'Summary Care Records' at present being uploaded with great rapidity - to the distress of many health professionals.

The aim is to alert people to the consequences of a letter coming through doors across parts of England, and to clarify the choices you can make.

The Department of Health is currently sending mailshots to people living in some areas, informing them of 'changes to your health records'. These changes are presented as necessary and inevitable but they are not. They shift control of health information from medical professionals to the state and will result in YOUR private details being uploaded onto a centralised system accessible to hundreds of thousands of people - not just doctors.

Link and more information here. Why not send the link to your friends and relatives?

ID cards - not many interested.

2010-03-09T17:57:00.009Z

There would appear to be little interest in ID cards in the Northwest of England. Since January there have been a mere 14 applications per day, see here. Perhaps the fact that the Tories and Lib-Dems claim they will scrap ID cards and the Don't be a Guinea Pig campaign by NO2ID in the Northwest has successfully educated people as to what having an ID card really entails.

Legal niceties?

2010-03-07T23:52:00.006Z

Databases are growing like Topsy. Here is yet another. BAE systems has been awarded a €2.3 million contract to develop a Strategic crime and immigration information management system (SCIIMS) for the European Union.

The use of controversial information technologies such as data mining, profiling and predictive modelling are explicitly mandated by the EU contract, in spite of widespread concerns about their legality and effectiveness.

SCIIMS will mine large data sets. This could include EU databases such as the EUROPOL and Schengen Information Systems, as well as national police and immigration databases in the member states. Unless these practices are regulated by national or international law, they will almost certainly be unlawful. Yet there is no mention whatsoever of data protection within the EU-BAE contract.

Well done Germany.

2010-03-06T12:28:00.012Z

After an outcry and more than 35,000 complaints, see here, Germany's High Court has told police and secret services that they must stop storing email and telephone data and delete information already collected. The court said that data was not properly protected and that authorities were not sufficiently clear as to why they needed it. Germany will continue to comply with the EU's Data Retention Directive and keep records for six months BUT will not open data packets to record who Karl contacted on Facebook, for example, without gaining legal permission.

Here in the UK we've only heard of the STASI and only joke, so far, about our police state. YET you are paying over £2 billion for the Intercept Modernisation Programme (IMP), which plans that communications providers will maintain giant databases of everything YOU do online. They want providers to process the mass of data to link it to individuals, to make it easier for our authorities to access, without asking for a warrant. This will be general oversight and 'phishing' of your personal communications. This will be the equivalent of opening your letters.

Write to your MP and say that the terrorists have won if we are subjected to such Stasi-like surveillance.

Not so elementary?

2010-03-05T16:46:00.026Z

All 43 police forces in England and Wales are to start using mobile fingerprint scanners enabling officers to cross-reference prints with national records, namely the National Fingerprint Database (IDENT1.) Up to 3,000 devices, will be in use by this summer,see here.

The National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) quango has signed a three-year contract worth £9m with a US firm Cogent Systems. This sounds a lot but the salaries alone of the NPIA cost £100 million a year as you can see from this link.

The technique of forensic fingerprint analysis used to be regarded as a perfect system of identification. This is no longer true. Formerly there was always a 16-point method of comparing prints. However, police chiefs have decided the current 16-point match standard is unnecessarily tough and results in guilty people going free. The use of experts was considered more reliable but four fingerprint experts were suspended in Scotland after Detective Constable Shirley McKie was wrongly accused of being at the scene of a murder in 1997. Also, tests have shown that forensic fingerprint experts may come to different conclusions when presented with the same sets of prints. Nonetheless the popular view is that the system is foolproof.

The larger the database, the greater the possibility of two fingers having roughly similar sets of coordinates and our police have a database of over 8 million sets of fingerprints already.

Fingerprint scanners will be very convenient for the police, as a check will take just two minutes and we are told that fingerprints will not be added to a database. Nonetheless, will this just be used for suspects who would otherwise have had to be taken to the police station? Or could there be some mission creep? Would it not be so easy just to check a few random, suspicious types; perhaps a watercolourist painting a factory? It's happened before, see here.

If you get one of those leaflets asking you to voice tell your prospective candidate what most concerns you, tell them that you want your civil liberties back. (You don't necessarily even have to state your address.)

Surveillance spin.

2010-03-02T15:19:00.001Z

Our Prime Minister gave a speech yesterday where he told us that crime was down substantially and that all we have to fear is fear of crime itself. He said that the DNA database and CCTV cameras have played a great part in this decline but failed to back this up with any figures; instead he told us about an emotive crime that had been solved because an unconvicted man's DNA was on the database. On the other hand, Mr Cameron failed even to mention the database state in his conference speech.

So, make sure you mention ID cards and the database state if you ever get someone canvassing for support at your door.

Criticisms over new Blackburn ID card Centre

2010-02-28T20:56:00.007Z

Anger over the launch of the controversial ID card scheme in Blackburn has sparked campaigners to form a local opposition group. The group will be part of the national NO2ID campaign which opposes ID cards and the Database State. A launch meeting which is open to the public will take place on Monday 15th March at 7.30pm at Blackburn Library. The group hopes concerned members of the public will be joined by opposition politicians, and asks anyone interested in further information to email Blackburn@no2id.net

Despite opposing the scheme on principle Local politicians including Blackburn with Darwen Council leader and Conservative Mike Lee had cautiously welcomed the news that the cards would be processed in Blackburn, bringing jobs to the area. Campaigners have hit back at this jobs claim with new information obtained under the Freedom of Information act showing that no new jobs are being created here in Blackburn and existing resources are being used.

James Elsdon-Baker North of England coordinator for NO2ID said:

The claim ID cards will bring jobs is the latest wheeze in a string of excuses for why we need them, we have shown this to be misleading like many of the other claims surrounding ID cards. The reality is the cards are a gross waste of public funds. They will likely be scrapped after the election. Rather than becoming Guinea Pigs for this dangerous scheme, people would be better off saving their £30 or spending it locally here in Blackburn.

The Identity and Passport Service (IPS) claims that ID cards are a
“convenient” form of proof of age and will therefore be particularly useful for teenagers. It is not so forthright about the fact that, once on the system, you have obligations for the rest of your life. You must look after the card and report if it is lost, stolen, or damaged, and you must keep your official record on the National Identity Register up to date for the rest of your life. There are penalties for not doing so.

Meg Hillier MP, the minister responsible, has confirmed that nothing will get you removed from the Register – not even death.

See links:

Blackburn Citizen.
full FOI request

For a full list of the fifty categories of information that may legally be held on the National Identity Register, read Schedule 1 of the Identity Cards Act 2006 here.

For more information contact-
Frankie the Blackburn NO2ID coordinator at Blackburn@no2id.net (07539938399)
James Elsdon-Baker NO2ID North of England coordinator north@no2id.net (07817605162)
Phil Booth (National Co-ordinator, national.coordinator@no2id.net) (07974 230 839)
Guy Herbert (General Secretary, general.secretary@no2id.net) ( 07956 544 308)
Michael Parker (Press Officer, press.officer@no2id.net) on (07773 376 166)

NHS Spine

2010-02-27T20:16:00.011Z

The Summary Care Record (SCR) scheme (the Spine) will make outlines of medical records available to hundreds of thousands of NHS staff in England. The idea is to provide doctors and nurses in England with easier access to information on patients registered with other doctors without having to call or fax their main medics, see here. The cost is over £12 billion.

Security is a problem. A Scottish doctor managed to look at the health records of both Gordon Brown and Alex Salmond, because he was 'curious' and was not prosecuted. (Scotland has a similar scheme.)

Roll-out of Summary Care Records is gathering pace. To date nearly 1.2 million Summary Care Records have been created and over 6 million patients have been written to as part of a Public Information Programme.

The system is fraught with privacy pitfalls while offering questionable clinical benefits, according to Professor Ross Anderson of Cambridge University.

The opt out rate remains below 1%. You could join this select number and, if you have a serious medical condition, if I were you I would wear a tag. Especially if you have a surname such as Smith or Jones.

Balancing risks or covering backs?

2010-02-26T17:52:00.016Z

Paediatricians have to have a CRB check for every NHS trust they work in. This small group tend to move around the country more than other specialist doctors in order to perform operations or cover absences.

It can take two months for a check to arrive and, as a result sick children have to travel long distances to see a surgeon or have their operations delayed. The Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) has strongly criticised the "overzealous" interpretations of the rules by NHS trusts and long delays in returning results.

The RCS said medical staff with an enhanced CRB check should be allowed to work in any hospital, and pointed out the restrictions prevented trainee paediatricians from gaining experience in different areas. Some trainee surgeons went through more than 10 separate checks in two years, see the Nursing Times.

It could be pointed out that the risk from a paedophile could override the risks of a delayed operation. However, I doubt it would require a particularly skilled statistician to make an analysis. Has any paediatrician been charged or convicted of a sexual attack on a child between CRB checks? Or ever?

Meanwhile here is a map to show the instances of sexual abuse on children by those who have undergone a CRB check and have been given a clear record, see here. Hat tip - Big Brother Watch.

Personally I'd take the (statistically insignificant) risk and go for the operation.

More publicity for NO2ID

2010-02-25T20:59:00.018Z

A survey by the Daily Echo found 69 per cent of those polled in Hampshire agreed with the principle of the DNA database. Some 65 per cent said they would also be happy to have their DNA profiles placed on there indefinitely. The most common reason they said, was that they simply had nothing to hide. This contrasts with the 'State of the Nation' poll carried out for the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust which found that 61% believe police should not be allowed to keep a person's DNA profile if they have not been charged with an offence.

There is an interesting discussion between Det Supt Jason Hogg and Dr. Ian Thomas, Southampton Co-ordinator for NO2ID in the Daily Echo, see here. Dr Thomas gives an excellent argument against the DNA retention of innocent people, he states that:

...only 1 in 5,000 prisoners are in prison thanks to the DNA database.

Ministers have been asked repeatedly in parliamentary questions to reveal the number of crimes that have been detected or solved as a result of the retention of innocent people on the database and on each occasion they have replied that this data is not available.

Examination of the statistics show that the Home Office is either deliberately misleading the public or fails to understand its own figures.

And then, when the figures don’t stand up they resort to emotive individual cases.

Det Supt Jason Hogg's argument for DNA retention consists largely of such 'emotive individual cases'.

Dithering for Britain?

2010-02-25T00:10:00.005Z

A couple of months before the election and three months after the first ID cards were issued, the Identity and Passport Service(IPS) has discovered that it must redesign the National Identity Register from scratch, see here. This is the register that the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have pledged to scrap.

Despite many warnings it has just discovered that using the Department for Works and Pensions' database to store the biographical details of ID card holders is problematical. The IPS said:

"No decision has been made on the solution for the biographical store for the National Identity Register."

ContactPoint problems.

2010-02-22T23:43:00.007Z

Thankfully, both the Lib-Dems and the Conservatives have pledged to abolish the ContactPoint database. We find that there have been five security breaches in the pilot phase of the system, see here. There have also been 51,000 requests for information to be shielded, however there are strict rules as to when this is permitted.

An example of an internal emails from Surrey County Council illustrates the concern that has been privately expressed by officials about the database.

“The process is not user friendly. Data is an issue locally, a lot of it doesn’t match up, especially addresses. There are also issues around what needs recording for each agency to get consistency.

A DCSF spokesman said:

The bottom line is that ContactPoint is up and running and being used successfully by authorised front line workers’ in their day-to-day work.

Hence a system which was launched in order to protect children, to save social workers' time and to have a 'joined-up' process would appear to be going the way of many government IT projects: creating more work, costing a great deal and not improving the problem it was established to solve. Or, it is a great success!

See also here.

Protest against body scanning.

2010-02-18T21:53:00.003Z

There is a facebook campaign against airport body scanning, see here. So far there are - 10,000 members and climbing.

Uni Nanny

2010-02-15T12:15:00.011Z

The escalation in fraudulent applications as a result of the ill-considered points- based student visa system has had the usual result of penalising genuine students, see here. Academics and university staff are now being required by law to act as government informants and draconian surveillance systems are being imposed. One such system is called Uni Nanny and, no, this is not a joke. Here it is in action and, scarily, the students seem perfectly happy about it all.

Shockingly, Network75 Ltd is a spin-out company of the University of Glamorgan. One business focus is an electronic web-based student monitoring system that can improve retention of university students. The university owns the trademark name Uni-Nanny. See here.

NO2ID and the EU dimension.

2010-02-12T23:09:00.009Z

NO2ID, with some financial backing from Microsoft, has won admission to the industry working group of Project STORK, the EU programme for devising interoperability standards for electronic ID systems across Europe.

"We know that IPS is one of those around the table, and is using the interoperability of passports as an excuse to drive fingerprints on chips..... If developing European standards start to present a threat to privacy and civil liberties, then we are now in a much better position to know about it and lobby against it." Phil Booth of NO2ID.

Let us just say that it is better late than never. Schengen members already have fingerprint biometrics in passports, many have compulsory ID and EU ID interoperability systems are already very advanced. See IDABC and a cheerful video giving you all the advantages is here.

A fingerprint is for life.

2010-02-10T16:31:00.015Z

Government seems to have done a good job in softening up our youth for a Big Brother society. Children have been encouraged to use fingerprints to obtain meals or take out library books in school and fingerprint cartoons have been used as propaganda. Here is a rather chilling result.

BBC news reports that Mr Parker, the owner of an outdoor in Bridlington has installed a DIY ID card reader system. Who can really blame him as the government, which has cheerfully permitted 24 hour opening and cheap alcohol, imposes draconian fines and on those found guilty of selling to underage drinkers and smokers.

Mr Parker said: "We get a lot of young people coming in and trying to buy cans of lager or cigarettes. The scanner is an excellent solution."

His shop is near a large college and in the first week since the equipment was installed, 70 young people have signed up to use it. Customers are asked to provide a driving licence or passport as proof of identity and their details are entered on the scanner. Their fingerprint is then entered into the system and linked to the proof of identity.

"Once that's done all they need to do each time they come in is put their thumb or fingerprint on to the system and we will then let them have the goods," said Mr Parker.

Eighteen-year-old Brett seems cheerfully casual about it: "If I forget, I don't need to use my ID any more. It's better really because I don't have to keep showing my ID."

He seems to forget that fingerprints are for life and, once stolen, cannot be changed.

LTKA provides lots of information regarding the fingerprinting of children.

Proposed reforms to the database state

2010-02-09T12:34:00.005Z

Here are a couple of links if you have an hour or so spare. The Conservative proposals and the Liberal Democrats' Freedom Bill.

Privacy in the EU

2010-02-08T21:05:00.010Z

Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media, has promised tough new laws to curb privacy-breaching technology and said there needed to be clarity as to how key principles like consent and transparency work in practice and to ensure that data was safe no matter where the data controller was located. She said there should be promotion of 'privacy by design', see here.

As the same time we learn that large amounts of confidential personal information held about British citizens on a giant computer network spanning the European Union could be accessed by more than 500,000 terminals, as reported by the Observer.

The figure was revealed in a Council of the European Union document examining proposals to establish a new agency, based in France, that would manage much of the 27 EU member states' shared data. But the sheer number of access points to the Schengen Information System (SIS) – which holds information regarding immigration status, arrest warrants, entries on the police national computer and a multitude of personal details – has triggered concerns about the security of the data.

Statewatch, said it was aware of a case in Belgium where personal information extracted from the system by an official was sold to an organised criminal gang.

Although the UK and Eire are not signed up to Schengen, a lot of their personal data is.

Open Rights Group campaign

2010-02-04T16:47:00.004Z

The Open Rights Group have a campaign against the Intercept Modernisation Programme. I reproduce a 'model' letter that they suggest you can use to write to your MP. It sums up the issues neatly.

I am writing to express my concern at the proposed Intercept Modernisation Programme. I understand this may contain plans to collect details of who I send emails to and the people I contact via Facebook and other social networking sites.

I understand that there are also discussions around centralising all internet traffic data in a series of databases accessible by the government, thereby gaining permanent easy access to the data being held by Internet Service Providers.

I believe this is likely to be an expensive waste of time, and a gross invasion of citizens’ privacy. There will be serious risks if a large number of civil servants can access extremely personal information, such as who someone contacts by email or Facebook message. Although I presume there would continue to be legal barriers, in practice we all know that it is possible, once information is made accessible, for information to be wrongly accessed, distributed or lost.

I am also convinced that any serious criminal or terrorist will not use normal email or social networking sites to plan and communicate about their activities. Collection of information will, however, make it much more routine to use anonymisation and encryption technologies to hide their activities. This will mean the proposals will make it harder, not easier, to get evidence.

At the same time, It is possible that legitimate protesters and campaigners will use normal electronic communications, which puts these people carrying out legal activities at risk of abuse.

I am also concerned about the possibility that such information will be analysed for suspicious patterns, in processes called ‘data mining’. This would put many innocent people under scrutiny. As Bruce Schneier, the renowned security expert says:

“Terrorist plots are different … attacks are very rare. This means that even very accurate systems will be so flooded with false alarms that they will be useless: millions of false alarms for every one real attack, even assuming unrealistically accurate systems.”See here.

Fundamentally, ‘traffic data’ is an integral and private part of any communication, as the European Court of Human Rights has already agreed. Collecting it, storing it and analysing it must be done only to address very serious concerns of public safety, targeted at individuals, not in order to carry out mass surveillance.

I urge you to bring these concerns to the light of the Home Secretary.

Smart Alec

2010-02-04T11:36:00.007Z

Geneticist Sir Alec Jeffreys, the developer of DNA fingerprinting and profiling told
the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee that he was "astonished, perplexed and deeply worried" about the existing management policy of the National DNA Database. See Kable.
Sir Alec added that innocent people should be taken off the database and that he would object profoundly if his own DNA was put onto the system.

"DNA is intimately different to fingerprinting, it carries incredibly intimate information about who you are, where you're from and your family," said Jeffreys. He made reference to a recorded suicide due to an innocent person's shame at being on the database and pointed out that the likelihood of a false match "was not zero".

Not seeing the police for the acronyms?

2010-02-03T14:56:00.021Z

The Register reports that the police now have more than 10,000 ANPR cameras and and are passing up to 14m reads per day from automatic numberplate recognition cameras to a national database which is run by the National Policing Improvement Agency quango (NPIA) on behalf of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO Ltd).

Confused? Not to worry, the NPIA organises lots of training schemes at a competitive rate. It's even helped train hundreds of police across the world including Saudi Arabia!! The mind boggles. However, policing is a commercial enterprise and wages, at present running at over £100 million annually for the NPIA alone, must be paid.

The NPIA costs (you) £566 million a year and, of this, IT and consultants cost over £300 million. The NPIA charges police forces for its services eg £33 million for access to INDENT1 - the fingerprint database, in order to pay its way.

The Police National Computer now holds over 9 million people records, 52 million driver records and 55 million vehicle records.

Yet, despite the high tech, many people are becoming victims of car cloning, where stolen vehicles are given false number plates and identity papers before being sold. Up to 130,000 blank logbooks, stolen in 2006, are still missing. Not to worry because, if you fail to display your car tax the ANPR is sure to spot this and send you a fine in the post, this will help fund the NPIA. Additionally if your number plates are cloned you may well get the fraudster's speeding tickets.

PS Quangos tend to grow like Topsy, for example -Secured By Design is managed by ACPO Crime Prevention Initiatives Limited (ACPO CPI) a "not for profit" company wholly owned by ACPO.

Pirate Party on the Digital Economy Bill

2010-02-02T00:05:00.008Z

Andrew Robinson, leader of the Pirate Party UK briefly explains some of the perils relating to the Digital Economy Bill slowly wending its way through Parliament.

From the horse's mouth.

2010-01-30T21:02:00.004Z

The national identity card is likely to be counterfeited, police have warned, see here.

At present there would appear to be about 12 card readers available in the UK to verify the authenticity of ID cards. As a result detective chief superintendent Nigel Mawer of the Metropolitan Police no less, states that:

As with any form of identification, it's likely that the ID card scheme would be targeted by people creating false IDs...It's important that people invest in the equipment to enable them to tell if an ID card is genuine, to get the full benefit from an anti-crime perspective.

Detective chief inspector Nick Downing adds:

The cards are not widely distributed at the moment, and the Met has yet to see any fakes....but if the cards do come in across the UK, we will see them being counterfeited.

Saturday stall.

2010-01-29T23:54:00.004Z

Birmingham NO2ID is holding its monthly stall in New Street, Birmingham from 10.00am to
4.00pm (opposite the Coventry Building Society). Anyone who wishes to help would be most welcome.
We hold a monthly stall on the last Saturday in the month. Contact birmingham@no2id.net for more information.

Is this a private joke?

2010-01-28T22:58:00.010Z

Just when you thought internet snooping had stalled, we find that the government has created the Communications Capabilities Directorate (CCD) as a structure to implement the £2bn Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP) see here. The idea is for communications providers to maintain giant databases of everything their customers do online, including email, social networking, web browsing and making VoIP calls. They want providers to process the mass of data to link it to individuals, to make it easier for authorities to access.

The service providers foresee immense technical and civil libertarian problems but government is sanguine and, by the way, this is the fourth European Data Protection Day. In the UK the Information Commissioner's Office is supporting the initiative with activities to teach children, and their teachers, about the importance of privacy. The Information Commissioner has strongly criticised the IMP in the past, see here. I doubt he has a sense of humour.

Conservative civil liberty plans opaque.

2010-01-26T11:34:00.021Z

The Tories have stated many times that they intend to scrap the ID card scheme and the retention of the DNA of innocent people. I asked for some clarification from Tory shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling:

# Do you also intend to remove names and personal details of innocent people who have been arrested from the Police National Database?
# I understand that you intend to scrap the NIR and just retain basic details on the passport database. However, do you intend to collect fingerprints?

To which I got the cryptic reply: Our plans are limited at present to our proposal to implement the Scottish system for the DNA database and also to abandon the NIR.

Under the Scottish system the DNA of innocent people who are not convicted of an offence have their DNA removed from your DNA database (apart from those charged with violent and sexual offences when the DNA is retained for 3 years).

However, the National Police Improving Agency, NPIA which is responsible for the National Fingerprint Database (IDENT1) states that:

Every person arrested in England, Scotland and Wales for a recordable offence has their fingerprints, palm prints and limited nominal data taken and entered onto the database. DNA and mug-shot photographs are also obtained. This data is synchronised with the "arrest record" on the Police National Computer (PNC) or on the Scottish Criminal History System (CHS).

A consultation in Scotland from February 2009 provides us with this proposal, to:

....bring the law on the retention of fingerprints taken from unconvicted persons into line with DNA retention provisions. Fingerprints and other relevant physical data will be retained from unconvicted persons only if proceedings have been raised against them for a relevant sexual or violent offence.

So, the Tories will use the Scottish system but the Scottish system at present would appear to retain the fingerprints and other personal data of innocent people.

Will the Tories follow any new Scottish system? Will they keep to the present Scottish system? They are certainly not saying.

As for fingerprints in passports - well they certainly aren't saying they intend to prevent these being on the passport database.

Home Office aids teenage drinkers.

2010-01-26T00:29:00.006Z

The Evening Standard reports that London's teenagers are being encouraged to apply for ID cards.
People aged 18 to 24 will be able to spend £30 on a biometric photocard that can be used to prove their age when buying alcohol or age-restricted goods, to gain entry to a nightclub, or even to travel in Europe...

Home Office minister Meg Hillier said that the National Identity Card would be an “extremely useful tool, and ....with tough new laws clamping down on underage drinking, it will be more important than ever for young people to have access to a universally accepted proof of age.”

Ms Hillier does not mention that this also means having their personal details held on insecure government databases for the rest of their lives, that the cards could be worthless as the Tories and Lib Dems have promised to scrap them and that there are proof of age cards available for £10.

Police state grows apace.

2010-01-25T13:50:00.011Z

The Guardian has a reply to a FOI request which foretells a bleak future for the UK population. If you thought that the surveillance society couldn't get much worse, think again. We are now to have unmanned drones spying on us from the sky. They should be in place, ready to 'protect' us, in time for the 2012 Olympics. Initially the scheme was intended for use over the English Channel to monitor shipping and detect immigrants crossing from France. However, the documents suggest the maritime focus was, at least in part, a public relations strategy designed to minimise civil liberty concerns.

Our police are also planning to use the drones for the routine monitoring of antisocial motorists, protesters, agricultural thieves and fly-tippers. They say that this will 'revolutionise policing'. A prototype drone equipped with high-powered cameras and sensors is ready for test flights later this year.

In addition, we are informed that: officers have talked about selling the surveillance data to private companies.

City Police making up ID powers.

2010-01-23T17:44:00.008Z

More than 2,000 photographers attended the demonstration today in Trafalgar Square to proclaim their common-law right to take pictures in public places.

On the same day that the European Court of Human Rights ruled that stop and search powers under the Terrorism Act were too wide, it emerged that City of London police were claiming they may demand identification from photographers – powers that no legislation gives them. In a statement given to Amateur Photographer, City of London Police said:

"Photographers should carry identification where possible and be prepared to answer questions about why they are taking photographs, if they are asked."

Even under the controversial - now, arguably illegal - 'stop and account' powers in the Terrorism Act 2000, police have no power arbitrarily to demand you identify yourself, let alone produce documents on the spot. They can only do so in connection with the investigation of a suspected offence.

Phil Booth, NO2ID's National Coordinator, said:

"Even the Terrorism Act does not give police power to demand identification arbitrarily. In backing this 'advice to photographers' by vague menaces, the City force is trying to make it compulsory to carry ID in the square mile. Anyone with a mobile is a photographer nowadays.

It is not a free country where police make up powers to suit themselves. If what you are doing is lawful, then your identity no business of the police. This is a perfect illustration of the danger of the government’s ID scheme. They'll say they 'need to know'. They don't. Official ID obsession means harassment for citizens - legally or illegally."

Demonstration 23rd Jan.

2010-01-21T21:52:00.006Z

I'm a Photographer, not a Terrorist! invite all Photographers to a mass photo gathering in defence of street photography. Saturday 23rd January 2010, Trafalgar Square

Good government IT - for once not an oxymoron.

2010-01-21T16:16:00.010Z

Today modest genius, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, unveiled the public beta version of data.gov.uk, a website dedicated to opening up government statistics to the public. Much of this information has been available before, if you knew where to look. But – in Sir Tim’s words:

– “government data is something we have already spent the money on… and when it is sitting there on a disk in somebody’s office it is wasted.”

0.26% of Mancunians entrust their personal data to government for life.

2010-01-20T23:02:00.008Z

From the ID card scheme's launch in Manchester on 30 November 2009 to 14 January 2010, 1,300 people who live in Greater Manchester have applied and attended an enrolment appointment for an ID card. See here. This equates to 0.26 per cent of the city's population.

The Home Office tells us that:
People want ID cards. Polling has showed a consistent 60 per cent of people support the National Identity Service. This has translated into more than 600 calls per day from people requesting application packs".

A spokesman for NO2ID told Public Servant Daily:
That the Home Office is fiddling the figures on the levels of public support for ID cards should come as no surprise - it's been doing so for years.

Meanwhile a Scottish doctor has illegally accessed the summary care records of celebrities and politicians, including Gordon Brown and Alex Salmond merely out of curiosity and will not be charged with any offences. See here. If Gordon has an ID card we do hope his 50 items of personal information, including fingerprints, are securely stored.

IT Klondike!

2010-01-19T15:16:00.009Z

Several publications are linking to a survey of Labour's 10 most notorious IT schemes. The Independent claims that government has spent £26 billion on computer systems that have suffered severe delays, run millions of pounds over budget or have been cancelled altogether. The surprise is that all the papers seem astounded by this.

Also, they all repeat the canard that Labour is not intending to push the roll-out of ID cards and the NIR is not even mentioned. Nonetheless, there are useful summaries of the major schemes, some of which I had not heard of.

ANPR used as cash cow.

2010-01-17T21:17:00.004Z

The Independent on Sunday reveals that police are using controversial car-surveillance technology aimed at catching criminals and terrorists to target members of the public in order to meet government performance targets and raise revenue.

Police whistleblowers also claim that intelligence stored on the national Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) database is "at least 30 per cent inaccurate", which has led to the wrongful arrest of innocent motorists and the seizure of their cars.

Smart meters - are they such a smart idea?

2010-01-16T14:28:00.011Z

The European Union said in 2006 that smart meters should be made mandatory, but voters in the Netherlands have vigorously opposed a compulsory rollout and succeeded in persuading politicians to vote against it. The fears are that data on energy consumption could be misused by criminals, police or insurance companies. Dutch consumer and privacy organisations were concerned that information relayed as frequently as every 15 minutes could allow employees of utility companies to see when properties were empty or when householders had bought expensive new gadgets. See here.

The UK government intends to spend £8.1 billion establishing a smart meter system and database. The present trials, which are being conducted with four of the leading suppliers, are throwing up potential problems, including issues about access to properties and the need for rewiring and repiping. Datamonitor is warning that the introduction of smart metering will rival the creation of the internet as a telecommunications project and will stretch utility industry practices and processes to breaking point.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change wants to see 47 million meters in 26 million properties by 2020 and states:

Data protection and system security are crucial issues for the success of the rollout and operation of the smart metering and will be a vital part of the implementation work we will be doing. We will take a rigorous and systematic approach to assessing and managing these issues.

Well they would say that wouldn't they?

Vote against the database state

2010-01-16T14:03:00.004Z

You can vote against ID cards and the database state here. Power 2010 has decided on 5 reforms of the UK parliament and scrapping ID cards and rolling back the database state is in second place.

Post Office diversifies.

2010-01-15T22:29:00.009Z

A FOI request has just revealed some interesting information about the government's struggle to ramp up 'biometric enrolment' of the general population. The plan is to enrol you on the scheme and take your fingerprints, facial photo and signature in Post Offices across the UK, if you apply for a passport from the end of 2011.

The UK Border Agency's 'Commercial Strategy On Future Biometric Enrolment Accommodation and Services' makes it quite clear the Home Office doesn't have the capacity to handle mass registration:

We have considered using IPS (which is part of the Home Office anyway) to provide these services... but they provide scant geographical coverage,and have limited space for processing the additional footfall of enrolment applications."

So much for the value of the interrogation centre network, expensively set up in the past few years, and now being quietly wound down again.

The official documents have been mysteriously - and inconsistently- blotted out in places. Most references to costs are excised; the planned timetables are shown, but what logically should be references to how much has been done, where, are all black. Confident? In different versions of the same documents the same bits are not redacted. Competent?

Will it actually work, if it is available on time? They don't seem to think so. One Post Office presentation refers bizarrely to people whom the system can't even record:

The system can allow up to three attempts, before offering to accept and forward the last photograph if the Customer agrees, on the basis that not all people are ICAO [International Civil Aviation Organisation] conformant.

As David Blunkett put it in another context, "impossible, not nearly impossible, impossible".

Thanks to NO2ID newsletter 140.

Public private partnership, not?

2010-01-14T14:37:00.006Z

Companies that fall foul of the data breach laws now risk a maximum fine of £500,000. It is not clear at this time whether the same principle applies to Government departments that lose sensitive data! See here.
Thanks to the Daily Mail for the chart. NB This is from November 2007 and now the DNA database holds 5.5 million profiles.

ID database will track NI numbers

2010-01-11T14:48:00.009Z

The Home Secretary has admitted in a Parliamentary answer, see here, that the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) is collecting National Insurance numbers from every person who applies for an ID card, and storing them on the National Identity Register - the ID card database.

As from next year it will be compulsory to apply for entry on the National Identity Register in order to receive a passport, this means that all passport applicants will also have their NI number collected and stored for life.

Mr Johnson's answer failed to mention other categories of information, in addition to what is currently recorded on the passport database, that are to be held on the National Identity Register.

Phil Booth, NO2ID's National Coordinator, said:

The National Identity Scheme has never been about a card - it's about tracking you throughout your life, linking your details by the numbers.

This admission confirms the Home Office's intentions for the scheme. It wants to track you through every government and private database it can - and your NI number's just the start.

It is also worth mentioning that the Electoral Commission tells us that: from 2011 onwards, we will report annually to Parliament on the progress of the voluntary collection of personal identifiers - National Insurance number, signature and date of birth - from electors, to make sure that the conditions are appropriate before any move to compulsory provision of identifiers.

Just say NO.

2010-01-10T21:11:00.011Z

A parent rants about being asked to provide reams of personal information to her child's Sure Start nursery. She just said "no". How refreshing, see here.

No, thank you, I do not want or need support.

I do not want my children's details being passed onto any of the incompetent people with whom I have had the misfortune to work.

I do not want other agencies in government meddling with the lives of my children and getting it wrong, again.

I do not give my consent for their details to be added to ContactPoint. In it I see only danger to children. No, thank you.

Bravo renegade parent.

IPS spends more on bad spin

2010-01-09T16:00:00.010Z

The Register alerts us to an attempt at ID card propaganda that would make even Joseph Goebbels squirm. See here.

ID card scheme expands early

2010-01-08T12:05:00.004Z

The Home Office has now begun to require Tier 2 foreign nationals to register for ID cards when renewing their visas – three months earlier than it had originally planned.

Tier 2 includes skilled workers, ministers of religion, sportsmen and women, representatives of overseas businesses and dependants. Guy Herbert of No2ID said that the government already had plenty of information on the identity of Tier 2 immigrants and the scheme was superfluous and wasteful.

Alan Johnson has confirmed that the National Identity Register contains National Insurance numbers. This means that the register could be used to cross-reference with other government databases, including tax and benefits.
See here and here.

STOP PRESS - NDNAD solves 0.67% of crimes!

2010-01-06T13:20:00.008Z

The Home Affairs select committee has been told that, of the nearly 5 million offences reported to the police last year, 33,000 were solved thanks to a direct match with a stored DNA profile, see here.

Britain's national DNA database (NDNAD) with more than 5.5million individuals registered, solves one in every 150 crimes and it's the largest in the world.

Conservative campaigns

2010-01-05T12:31:00.003Z

The Conservatives have started electioneering and have two campaigns of interest to us. One is to reclaim your DNA and the other is to stop ID cards. To give them their due they have been criticising the surveillance state and national databases for some time, even if this is a general election ploy. We hope that they also intend that innocent people who have their DNA removed from the DNAD will have their personal information removed from the police national computer. Regarding ID cards they say:

Brown says he's scrapping compulsory ID cards: he either doesn't not know what he’s talking about, or he's deliberately pulling the wool over people’s eyes. Anyone who makes an application for a ‘designated document’ such as a passport has to enter personal information - including fingerprints and other biometric details - on the National Identity Register. This is compulsion by stealth. We don't want or need all our private information on a vast state database, with potential for another data loss disaster.

Now what is Conservative policy on fingerprints in new biometric passports? Also, we just hope that these promises are better than other cast-iron guarantees given by Mr Cameron!

Safe in their hands?

2010-01-02T15:11:00.014Z

There is a postcode lottery relating to the removal of the records of innocent people from the DNA database.

South Yorkshire police force does best, complying with 83% of requests for deletion, see here. Other forces including Cambridgeshire, Gloucestershire and Nottinghamshire have refused to remove any profiles. Essex, Greater Manchester and Thames Valley — wouldn't even provide any information on the grounds that it would be too costly.

We also discover via FOI requests that more than 400 officers and support staff have been sacked or given warnings after being caught looking at inappropriate material online and some officers have also been dismissed for using police databases to check out people’s backgrounds for personal reasons. See here.

The information provided by 47 police forces showed that on average nine members of staff have been punished for flouting IT rules in every force. In this respect, South Yorkshire was the force with the worst record, with 53 members of staff caught on inappropriate sites.

Also, remember that since 2005 if you have had your DNA taken, you will also have a record on the Police National Computer, see here, and evidently there are no plans to delete this accompanying identity data on the Police National Computer.

Data collection, terrorism and confusion.

2010-01-01T21:21:00.008Z

After the recent plane bombing attempt, expect more 'reasons' for the collection, storage and investigation of your personal data. Here is an interesting fact-

After Sept. 11, we Americans indulged our faith in the god of technocracy. We expanded the country’s information-gathering capacities so that the National Security Agency alone now gathers four times more data each day than is contained in the Library of Congress. See the NYT.

As the UK government increases the amount of personal data it keeps on its citizens exponentially, so it makes it more difficult to protect said citizens. Trying to put the personal information of everyone on registers entails huge amounts of time and manpower. And the effect of all this? Well, if you want to find a needle in a haystack, don't increase the size of the haystack.

ID card tender

2009-12-30T00:35:00.005Z

Kable writes that the Identity and Passport Service has put out an advert regarding front office services for the issuing of ID cards and biometric passports.

The job involves such activities as: recording customers' biometrics – facial image and fingerprints – supporting online applications, collecting documents, the secure transfer of data and collecting payments. Sigh

Haven't we been here before?

2009-12-27T21:22:00.017Z

The government's consultation document regarding its postponed Intercept Modernisation Programme (IMP) has been likened to East Germany's surveillance system under the Stasi, see here, and here. This comment was made by a spokesman from T-Mobile:

"It would be extremely ironic if we at T-Mobile (UK) Ltd had to acquire the surveillance functionality envisaged by the Consultation Document at the same time that our parent company, headquartered in Germany, was celebrating the 20th anniversary of the demise of the equivalent systems established by the Stasi in the federal states of the former East Germany."

Every UK mobile network has serious objections to plans to intercept and store details of every communication via the internet, variously attacking IMP's technical feasibility, its legality, its impact on customer privacy and its opaque £2bn cost estimate.

Since October 2007, telecoms companies have been obliged to keep records for a year under the EU Data Retention Directive. Under the new legislation, they will also be required to organise it better – for example, by grouping calls made by the same person. They will also be compelled to intercept details of when and where each of their customers use services such as Facebook and Skype, as well as whom they contact. Hundreds of public bodies and quangos may also be able to obtain information from the system.

In addition to this one legal expert has stated that-

The Digital Economy Bill could give the Government the power to control the internet access of UK citizens by ministerial order, bypassing Parliament and without an adequate right of appeal.

The Home Office tells us that all this is to protect us from crime and terrorism! I'm sure the Stasi said the same.

Remember - an ID card is not just for Christmas.

2009-12-24T16:40:00.005Z

Happy Christmas from Birmingham NO2ID

Young Londoners targeted for ID

2009-12-23T16:37:00.010Z

According to the Home Office 1,500 identity cards have been issued since October 2009.Now ZDNet reports that the Home Office has confirmed that it will make identity cards available to those aged between 16-24 in London early next year.

The Home Office says that:"One of the many benefits of ID cards is being able to verify your age as 16 or over."

However, Philippe Martin, a senior Kable analyst comments:

"It is unclear what would be the benefit for young people to spend £30 if bars, shops and other premises do not have biometric scanners to verify their age. The advantage of the identity card over a student card, a driving licence or most passports is the biometric element. Until scanners are widely distributed to establishments needing this level of identification, the card is worthless."

This is one time we can be thankful for an inefficient government!

Protecting society from people like YOU

2009-12-21T16:50:00.007Z

Since 2005 if you have had your DNA taken you will also have a record on the Police National Computer.

The European Court of Human Rights said last year that DNA data should not be indefinitely retained from those who have not been charged or convicted. The government plans to delete some such profiles, hoping to bring the UK into line with the law. However, they are not going to delete the accompanying identity data on the Police National Computer.

The Information Commissioner's Office raised concerns that police retention of data from innocent people could damage their prospects via employment background checks.

"The commissioner is concerned that the very existence of a police identity record created as a result of a DNA sample being taken on arrest could prejudice the interests of the individual to whom it relates by creating inaccurate assumptions about his or her criminal past." See here.

Furthermore, the National Policing Improvement Agency (a quango costing you a mere £600 million annually) cheerily informs us that:
Via the Police National Computer (PNC), law enforcement officers will be able to share and use certain information with other police organisations from all Schengen countries .... increasing our opportunities to deal with cross-border crime and extending their reach across Europe. See here.

So there goes that job in Brussels!

23rd January a date for your diary?

2009-12-20T20:02:00.015Z

There will be a "mass gathering in defence of street photography" in Trafalgar Square on Saturday, 23rd January 2010. More details here and here.

Perhaps artists would also like to join the demo? Watercolourist Liam O'Farrell (hat tip The Badger) was twice confronted by England's finest whilst painting the Tate & Lyle sugar factory. A Met officer confidently declared that: "no one does watercolours of factories". Mr O'Farrell told them about Lowry. See here.

All shall have prizes?

2009-12-19T12:55:00.020Z

The black-tie e-Government National Awards dinner takes place 6.45pm - 11.15pm on 20th January 2010 at the Guildhall in the City of London. A seat is a snip at £197.

Amateur comedian Christopher Histed, founder of the e-Government National Awards says: "In this tough economic climate, the Awards are a yardstick proving the UK's excellence in innovative technology-driven services. Good public sector IT has a crucial role to play in delivering increasingly efficient & effective public sector services both at a Local and National level."

One of the finalists for the award is the egregious £1.2 billion e-Borders scheme which involves retaining all travel data for everyone entering and leaving the country in a massive centralised database.

This advanced passenger information is checked against watchlists and enables the authorities to count everyone in and out of the country. All the information passengers give to travel agents, including home addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, passport details and the names of family members, is shared with an unknown number of Government agencies for 'analysis' and stored for up to ten years.

Anything deemed suspicious is flagged and this evidently includes vegetarians!!

E-borders may now be deemed illegal or at least not compulsory. See here and here.

The fact that there might be a problem emerged in a letter from the European Commission to the UK Border Agency (UKBA) after the Home Office, somewhat belatedly, sought assurances that its requirement for passenger information would not breach EU rules. As a result the UKBA will now have to check anyone who has not provided the data once they arrive in the country and officials will not be able to refuse entry to any EU citizen, or even their family members, regardless of nationality, solely on the grounds that they refused to provide the information.

This hugely elaborate, intrusive database is a disgrace yet I very much doubt that the EU Commission has made this decision in order to preserve a few British civil liberties. The EU would like us to be part of their own e-borders, join Schengen and fully harmonise with massive EU databases such as: VIS, EURODAC, SIS and SIS 11.

Dixon would be shocked - PCSO is chewing gum!

2009-12-17T14:30:00.014Z

Another example of the ongoing saga of photographers being harassed by the police despite damage limitation being attempted by their superiors. See here and here.

Well done Liverpool council

2009-12-16T16:32:00.006Z

Meg Hillier forgot her brand new ID card on a visit to Liverpool to promote - yes, ID cards.

Liverpool Council has passed a motion declaring that it: will refuse to cooperate with any plans to promote the National Identity Scheme including refusal to allow any council premises to be used for promotional events or meetings. The council's communication channels will also not be made available.

Finally the council said it will work with organisations campaigning against the scheme to "raise awareness among Liverpool citizens of the dangers of the ID card and database scheme".

Phil Booth, NO2ID's national coordinator, said: "Neither the people of Liverpool nor their elected representatives have been conned. We particularly congratulate Labour councillors for taking their constituents' sides against the Home Office's favourite surveillance scheme, even if a Labour Home Secretary complacently lets the bureaucrats steam on, spending uncounted millions in the biggest ID theft of all."

Meg Hillier's response was: "I think Liverpool Council are cutting off their nose to spite their face." At least, she said she was Meg Hillier but couldn't prove it!

Reclaim your DNA on facebook

2009-12-15T00:27:00.004Z

Marcus Lasance has informed us that Reclaim your DNA is now on facebook. Thanks Marcus.

Another fine mess?

2009-12-14T23:40:00.011Z

It is being reported that the government has seen some reason regarding the ISA Vetting and Barring Scheme. Namely, that it has tinkered with eligibility rules in response to protests from: schools, parents, voluntary bodies and even the politicians who failed to envisage problems when they debated the Act in 2006. Two examples of changes are-

- Changing the frequency criteria from three days in three months (monthly) to once a week, and the intensive test to four days a month or overnight.
- Giving overseas visitors bringing groups of children into Britain a three month exemption before they are required to register.

However, as the Register points out, there are some people who do not need to be vetted such as the partners of parents hosting exchange students, making the system illogical. The Register also thinks that the DCSF has simply 'guessed' that the numbers requiring vetting will be reduced by 2 million to make a total of 9 million.

However, as we have pointed out previously, there are all those contractors working in schools who will probably insist on their employees being vetted and many schools that will find the process of working out who needs to be vetted so tortuous, that many people will be vetted 'just in case'.

The Prüm Convention begins.

2009-12-14T16:20:00.009Z

The "Issues and Risks" report, obtained by The Register using Freedom of Information laws, raises concerns that the DVLA database will be accessed directly by foreign officials for minor motoring offences and parking infringements, and that data will be sold to commercial interests such as marketing firms and private investigators.See here.

The report was commissioned by the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) which admits that access to the DVLA will be uncontrolled.

"The UK is aware that this is open to abuse, and that some EU member states are likely to use the Prüm capability for inquiries beyond the defined scope of cross-border crime and counter-terrorism," it says.

Hence, mission creep involving our personal data is not just restricted to the UK but increasingly has an EU dimension. For example we have the following -

Detecter reports that - after a long process the Italian Parliament has passed law 85 ratifying the Prum Convention and creating the legal basis for an Italian National DNA Database.

Tuck off beam?

2009-12-10T15:28:00.011Z

Kevin Tuck, hard man and Durham police Inspector is reported as saying:

"In Durham police have taken a stance and anyone found with *it will be arrested on suspicion of possession of a banned substance. They will be taken to a police cell, their DNA and fingerprints taken and that arrest, depending upon enquiries, could have serious implications, for example on future job applications." Gosh!

Yet, a Home Office spokesman said:

"Employment checks are not linked to the DNA database and employers cannot check if a potential employee is on the DNA database." Who is right?

*It, being mephedrone, which is legal to possess – but illegal to sell for medicinal purposes.

We're all under suspicion now.

2009-12-08T01:18:00.016Z

The Manor Community College in Cambridge is to ban any visitor who has not been checked by the Criminal Records Bureau. evidently this is deemed necessary to prevent strangers walking around the premises. But the college admits that volunteers, visitors and contractors will be hit with the ban.

Also, more than 125,000 teenagers are now having their backgrounds checked each year, even if they just help younger pupils at school or volunteer as sports coaches...See here.

Now, school visitors and volunteers can simply refuse to have the check but contractors would lose work so could not. Scary.

The shape of things to come?

2009-12-06T22:29:00.014Z

We have e-borders, ID cards for British citizens are being rolled out, we are creating more and more central databases and mobile scanners are being regularly used.

Well,you have often heard people say that they have nothing to hide, but what if you had?

Because names are associated with religious identity, many Iraqis change their names or carry fake IDs to avoid being murdered by rival sects.

Identification cards in Rwanda that included photos and listed tribal affiliation were used by rival Tutsis and Hutus to identify their foes.

The U.S. biometric database in Iraq, now contains information on more than 2.5 million Iraqis. This has undoubtedly been helpful in preventing some acts of terror but, when the U.S. forces leave Iraq, this same database may be used for monitoring critics of the regime and for political repression.

There is no comparison between Iraq and Great Britain yet, what if you wished to hide from: a minor crime, a violent spouse, an unsubstantiated accusation, presence at demonstrations? Well, at the rate things are going this will soon become impossible. This information will be on file for life. Though there's always the false ID card!

Data Retention dangers loom

2009-12-04T12:11:00.008Z

Following the official entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, we have to prepare ourselves for the rollout of the Stockholm Programme. This will give legal powers for further surveillance at national, international and EU level.

The European Digital Rights EDRi have called for the European Union to repeal the 2006 directive on the data retention of electronic communications. In the event that the directive is not repealed, they demand that it is amended to introduce an opt-out right allowing Member States to decide whether or not to require the retention of communications data. Perhaps Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg could be asked to slip this into their manifestos? Legal complaints against this directive are pending in several EU states. Meryem Marzouki of EDRi clearly sums it up the dangers inherent in the Data Retention directive which is encapsulated in the UK's Intercept Modernisation Programme (IMP).

"With the growing use of massive national databases, and the current plans towards their interoperability at EU-level and full access for police purposes, the data retention directive paves the way to further extensions of purposes, where data once collected strictly for the requirements of a given service delivery become used for citizens surveillance and social control, when not for intelligence purposes. This is not acceptable in a democratic society, and should be ended now."

Post Office staff taking fingerprints

2009-12-01T21:52:00.005Z

In September the Home Secretary announced that 17 Post Offices would be taking part in a trial of fingerprint biometric enrolment for foreign nationals. Eleven branches have gone live. These include Kingstanding and Reddich.

Manchester NO2ID hard at work

2009-12-01T21:29:00.009Z

James Elsdon-Baker, North of England NO2ID co-ordinator has reported on the inauguration of ID cards in Manchester:

We have had a good day over in Manchester. Interviews were given to GMTV and City Talk radio breakfast show that goes out across the NW.

Arrived in Manchester and saw outside the print works the dreaded smiley fingerprint campaign is in action. They had them on mobile cycle signs,that had a habit of moving when our stall got placed in front of them. I walked through the printworks and Meg (Hillier) was closed off inside one bar which had been transformed into a propaganda hub with stickers saying they accept ID cards, posters in the window etc.

All the screens in the place were showing this pro-ID card video. From what I could see it looked like they were taking pictures of people scanning their fingerprints with a reader by the entrance.

I gave out a few cards to journalists before being asked to leave by security. Ms Hillier did a Q&A session apparently to the assembled media which will go out at some point. Anyway we handed out leaflets outside, got hassled again by security trying to get us to move a stall off a public highway to the other side of the road.

They then tried to say we needed a licence to hand out flyers! I overheard some people talking and I think the printworks is going to be a location for ongoing activity, possibly their information stall. Basically because they can exclude anyone from getting near it.

I got chatting to one of the security guards later and he apologised, said he was totally against ID cards, but had been told to move us. Channel M who I spoke to at the printworks came along to our protest and we did an interview with them. Dave did an interview with local BBC radio, and the PM program got some quotes from us too. We had some students filming as well for their own news video they were making.

We did our protest for a bit, got very cold and headed off to warm up.Walking back through town there were quite a few mobile signs promoting ID cards which must be costing a bit.

Today - ID cards are go

2009-11-30T15:57:00.017Z

Here are some bits and pieces:

The Identity and Passport Service Framework Agreement is published giving information about the NIR and telling you that accredited organisations will have access to it. See here.

The database that backs up the national ID cards has officially been unveiled, and so far it holds just 538 names. Of those, all are British citizens and just one is a foreign national, despite people such as overseas students being given the cards since last November. The one foreigner is from the EU. See here

(The Home Office press department has not yet replied to a query as to whether there are two separate databases for foreigners and British citizens, and where data on foreigners was currently being held.)

1,107 eligible volunteers/guinea pigs, from the Greater Manchester area, London and the two airports, have made an appointment to enrol for an identity card out of a population of 1.7 million. See here.

Fingerprint checks on foreigners at border controls is operational see here.

Parental CRB checks.

2009-11-30T12:57:00.006Z

In the last post, I mentioned that people would soon need to have a police check in order to become parents. I was joking but this is becoming nearer reality with the report by the Daily Mail that home-schooling parents could be required to undergo a CRB check in order to teach their own children! The estimated 40,000 parents who choose not to send their children to school should be vetted, says Ofsted.

If, as a result, they are deemed unsuitable to teach their children then, ominously, it is said that social workers could become involved. It is alleged that we already have some cases whereby single mothers experiencing post-natal depression have not gone to see their GP, fearing social workers will remove their baby. So the next logical step really could mean CRB checks for ALL parents.

Prove your innocence!

2009-11-28T22:02:00.010Z

Slowly we are all becoming suspects, all having to prove our innocence.

The ContactPoint database will, rightly, highlight children who are at risk but it will also categorise those who may possibly be at risk and also note the details of every other child just in case. It is intended that details will be removed when the child is 18, so, once all 11 million plus children are on the database, that will mean that over 600,000 records will be destroyed annually. Who will do this and do you not think there will be the temptation to keep them, just in case? Especially if the child has had contact with the legal system.

Then we have the DNA database which, rightly, contains the DNA of convicted criminals and those implicated in recent serious crimes. Then it also contains those whom the police consider 'dodgy', those who have committed minor misdemeanour's and those who just happened to be at the scene of a crime. These details are ostensibly only to be kept for 6 years, who is to delete the information and who will check that this is done?

Then there is the ISA vetting and barring register of 11 million plus adults who work with children or vulnerable adults. This contains, rightly, those convicted of abuse but also any false accusations or suspicions and all the rest, just in case. Agencies and employers that employ a range of people who just might come into contact with children or vulnerable adults will check their prospective employees, just in case. Do you think that anyone with a suspicion on their record will get a job?

We now have the proposal by ACPO Limited and the Home Office for yet another new law and order database – this one including individuals who are unconvicted, but against whom there exist unsubstantiated allegations of domestic violence. See here. And so it goes.

The logical conclusion is that there should be parental screening and only those deemed suitable should be allowed to bear and rear children.

Also, there should be a database of politicians and civil servants. But then who would compile it and what would be the criteria for being deemed unsuitable for the job?

Don't be coerced.

2009-11-27T17:16:00.004Z

Big Brother Watch writes:

As a result of a very successful PledgeBank campaign, our friends at No2ID have a legal fund devoted to assisting people who don't want to "apply" for an ID card.

While frank compulsion has been dropped for now, the strategy of implementation the Government is mounting is plainly still inherently coercive.

There is notionally "voluntary" application from this Autumn but some people - those working for IPS, its contractors, and the originally designated airports - Manchester and City Airports* - may find themselves under real "indirect" pressure to apply...

That is prima facie unlawful under s16 of the Act as well as potentially a violation of all sorts of employment rights. That is not to say that it won't happen, though - the Home Office, with a desperate need for the scheme to be said to have succeeded, claimed to have opened for business with an application 'opportunity' for its own staff at the end of last month.

If any civil servant or member of contractor staff or airport worker is being pressed, or deceptively "invited", to apply, then get in touch with No2ID - they can help you.

By Alex Deane