Grayling letter

The Register reports that the Tory Party has written to firms involved in bidding for ID card contracts and told them to think long and hard before signing anything. The shadow Home Secretary has written the following letter to the IT contractors concerned:

NATIONAL IDENTITY CARD SCHEME

As you will be aware, the Conservative Party has stated publicly that it is our intention to cancel the ID card project immediately on our being elected to government.

I am writing to you as one of the companies involved in contracting for the project. I wanted to make it clear to you that our intention to cancel the project remains unchanged. I think it is important that the companies concerned bear this carefully in mind before committing to any long term contracts for the project, since it will not be our intention to proceed with the work if we are elected.

In addition, I wanted to draw your attention to my concerns about the nature of the contracts that are in development.

In March, the Home Secretary announced that the cancellation of two contracts for the national identity scheme, one to upgrade passport application systems, and one for a biometric database, would incur costs of £40 million.

Whilst we do not intend to scrap the programme introducing biometric passports, I wanted to make it clear that we will take an extremely sceptical view of any future contractual arrangements on ID cards that appear to have been put in place simply to tie the hands of a future Government.

In light of this, I urge you to consider very carefully your future involvement in the ID Card project.

Yours sincerely

Chris Grayling

However, Computer Weekly points out potential problems.

Richard Thomas CBE, an honourable man.

Richard Thomas, who has perhaps become most famous for coining the phrase: “sleepwalking into a surveillance society,” has been awarded a CBE.

Computing World tells us that Richard Thomas was indirectly responsible for the MPs’ expenses row by ruling that politicians’ spending should be published after a Freedom of Information request for the details was originally rejected by the government.

He has also been highly critical of privacy scandals involving lost data at the Ministry of Defence, HM Revenue and Customs and other government departments, as well as warning of the risk to individual privacy posed by creating a central database on personal information for the national ID card.

It is suggested that someone departing such a high-profile public-sector position might have expected higher honours, perhaps even a knighthood.

Thomas will be succeeded next month as Information Commissioner by former Advertising Standards Authority chief executive Christopher Graham.

Why not write to Alan Johnson?

The new Home Secretary Alan Johnson is now in charge of the ID card system and National Identity Register.If you feel strongly about ID cards and the NIR, why not write to him and express your concerns regarding the scheme? If you are able to write, it is much more effective if you write in your own words.

Write to the Alan Johnson at:
Home Office
Direct Communications Unit
2 Marsham Street
London SW1P 4DF

Or e-mail to: public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

DRAFT LETTER (to copy if desperate!)

Dear Mr Johnson,

I am concerned that in the current financial circumstances and extremely high level of debt the government intends to spend at least £5.5 billion on the ID card scheme. In addition, there will be the cost of the supporting infrastructure to process the cards, scanners etc, at both a national and local level.I am also concerned that I may be heavily fined if I do not inform the authorities of changes in my personal details.

The National Identity Register will contain more than 50 items of my personal information. The government record on keeping such information secure is highly compromised so I am worried about identity fraud.

I will be given a National Identity Registration Number (NIRN) which will become an 'identity hub' and we have seen how the incidence of identity theft has increased in both the USA and Australia where identity hubs of a single main number have been introduced.

There are many reports (some by your own government) that say that the cards will neither prevent benefit fraud nor terrorism so the intrusion into my civil liberties is even more unnecessary. Both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats are opposed to the NIR and ID cards as are many members of the public.

I do hope you reconsider the introduction of such an expensive database which worries so many people with its Orwellian overtones.


Yours sincerely,


Here are some suggestions that you may like to use to help compose your own letter. 

1. National Cost: concern about the government’s own forecast cost of £5.5 billion for the implementation of ID cards which excludes the additional cost of card readers / scanners and other infrastructure to support the cards. Particularly in the current financial climate and high levels of government debt.
2. Personal Cost: concerns about the personal cost estimated at somewhere in the region of £90 together with fines of up to £1000 for failing to keep information up to date thus including the ease with which otherwise law-abiding members of the public could be criminalised for pure administrative errors.
3. Security: concerns about government’s ability to keep secure the up to 50 items of personal data that will be held on the National Identity Register particularly in the light of recent data losses.
4.Increasing ease of identity theft: concerns that one National Identity Registration Number (NIRN) will increase the ease with which identities can be stolen. On top of this, the presumption of accuracy of the NIR itself will make it far more difficult to prove one’s own identity once stolen.
5. Terrorism and Fraud: concerns that many reports (some commissioned by government itself) state that the cards will neither prevent fraud nor terrorism therefore the stated benefit when measured against the cost to my privacy and civil liberties is not proven and therefore is unacceptable.
6. Conservative and Lib Dem opposition: opposition is fuelled by an awareness that an ever increasing proportion of the public are against the NIR and the ID card scheme and will have a bearing on the way in which the public vote at the next election.
7. False positives: increasing the amount of biometric data held on databases like the NIR and the DNA database has been shown to, rather than increase the likelihood of detection of criminals / terrorists, increase the number of “false positives”. It will also result in every member of the public being a “suspect” and at risk of being convicted based purely upon biometric data whose accuracy is far less than the “beyond reasonable doubt” level of criminal responsibility would normally allow.


And wouldn’t it be great if you spread the word and encouraged some friends to write too!?

A quarter of the adult population on ISA database

The Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) database which will hold information on the 11.3 million people who have contact with children or vulnerable adults, has been delayed again until July 2010. This database is designed to build on the existing system of Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks. However, the CRB, which will provide intelligence to ISA, makes thousands of errors every year - 12,225 people have disputed the results of a criminal record check and had their complaint upheld in the last five years.

The ISA database includes a criminal record check as well as data from "List 99" which can include cautions and dropped charges. It will also include a list of those considered unsuitable to work with children maintained by the Department of Education and another list of those barred from working with vulnerable adults.

From July 2009 everyone on the scheme will be subject to continuous monitoring - the database will check all entries against any new information from police or other sources. Registering on the database will cost £64 unless you are an unpaid volunteer.

Richard Thomas, who is stepping down after more than six years as Britain’s first Information Commissioner, has serious concerns about the system. He says the database would contain:

"allegations, some rumour, some speculation ....... if (officials) start making wrong decisions or allow the data to get into the wrong hands the scope for damage to be done both to individuals and the system as a whole is quite considerable."

Mr Thomas said the combination of treating rumours as relevant and the power to ban an individual from a job had the capacity to damage an innocent person in their career, financially and socially. The case of John Pinnington is one such example.

The outgoing commissioner also criticised the creation of the ContactPoint database, which contains records on all 11million children in England.He said it had similarities with the ISA system, in that both contained masses of material potentially irrelevant to the stated aim of protecting vulnerable children, and both were a ‘step too far’ for freedom.

Opt in or opt out?

The Register reports that a public mobile phone directory for the UK will launch on June 18th. It will contain millions of private numbers bought from marketing departments. Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, briefly worked as a consultant on the venture. He left two years ago after it became clear the business plan was dependent on opt-out, rather than an opt-in consent:

"It's a fundamental problem that people may not have expected their number to be used for this purpose when they didn't tick a box on a form for something else."

Davies said the firm's apparent unwillingness to discuss its data sources was also concerning. Connectivity says that each person will have the chance to opt out the first time they are contacted via the directory, but it could take a few weeks!

The Information Commissioner's Office said it was satisfied the system would comply with the law claiming that use of direct marketing data was no different to other companies who use similar contact lists for cold calling. However, Davies said few would have imagined that agreeing to be contacted for marketing purposes might mean their number would be included in a directory usable by anyone.

Perhaps the Information Commissioner could ensure that those opt-out boxes could be just a little bigger and more prominent?

Guilty until proven innocent.

A national network of cameras and computers automatically logging car number plates will be in place within months, the BBC has learned.

John Catt found himself on the wrong side of the ANPR system. He regularly attends anti-war demonstrations outside a factory in Brighton, his home town.It was at one of these protests that Sussex police put a "marker" on his car. That meant he was added to a "hotlist".

This is a system meant for criminals but John Catt has not been convicted of anything and on a trip to London, the pensioner found himself pulled over by an anti-terror unit.

"I was threatened under the Terrorist Act. I had to answer every question they put to me, and if there were any questions I would refuse to answer, I would be arrested. I thought to myself, what kind of world are we living in?"

Sussex police would not talk about the case.

The police say they do not know how many cameras there are in total, and they say that for operational reasons they will not say where the fixed cameras are positioned.

Information Commissioner Richard Thomas, whose job it is to protect personal data, has concerns about the lack of regulation.He said:

"There's very little monitoring. I mean, my office has very limited powers."We have very limited resources. We are not actively monitoring that area. You're right to ask the question. No one's checking it at the moment"

Doublethink

Today is the 60th anniversary of the publication of George Orwell's 1984.

The former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said:

The National Identity Register will hold a small amount of personal biographic details separately from biometric fingerprints and photographs...

However, NO2ID tells us that the National Identity database:

would grow year on year until eventually the government has a file(and card) on every person in the UK. The file (and card) could contain or link to financial history, health background, religion, ethnicity, criminal convictions, purchase history, physical whereabouts of the 'target citizen, political profile etc. etc. Each passing year will hear a call for more data to be added to the system in the name of "anti-fraud" "anti-terrorism" "protecting children" "anti tax-evasion" or any one of a number of similar reasons.

Remember that clause 152 (to allow information sharing of your personal information) of the recent Coroners and Justice bill was only defeated by a campaign by civil libertarians and NO2ID.

Ms Smith continued that it would be:

incredibly difficult for anyone to steal or exploit another's identity.

Whereas NO2ID tells us that the scheme:

will create a huge underground lucrative trade in fake ID estimated to be worth billions.

Now who is using doublethink?

Doublethink:The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them....To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient

You've got nothing to fear......

The Daily Mail tells us that:

Youths with no criminal record are being targeted for arrest so their DNA can be logged on a database in the event they commit crimes.

A total of 386 under-18s had their DNA taken and stored by police last year in one north London borough - more than one a day.

An experience officer working for the Metropolitan Police admitted the DNA was being stored as part of a 'long-term crime prevention strategy'.

The officer said: 'We are often told that we have just one chance to get that DNA sample and if we miss it then that might mean a rape or a murder goes unsolved in the future.'

He added: 'Have we got targets for young people who have not been arrested yet? The answer is yes.

We are always told that DNA evidence is totally reliable. In law, one of the principles of proof is: beyond reasonable doubt. When these two issues come together in court, which will be dominant? We have all too often seen the massive influence given to so-called expert witness evidence.

Henry Porter in his Guardian blog tells us that:

A lawyer and genetic scientist has raised the disturbing possibility of false matches being made in the police national DNA database (NDNAD). He suggests that the DNA database – which at the end of September 2008 had 4,343,624, samples, including those from hundreds of thousands of innocent people – is now so large that it is mathematically predicted an innocent person will be matched to a crime they did not commit.

Just imagine the false positives if ever there were 60 million people on the database and, whatever happened to the European Court's ruling regarding the retention of the DNA of innocent people?

German privacy video looks at retention of communications data .

The NO2ID national website recommends Alexander Lehmann's video:

Pupil power

Henry Porter blogs about Essex schoolchildren walking out of school on the grounds that their civil liberties were being breached. The story comes from the local newspaper the Waltham Forest Guardian. It tells us that:

PUPILS walked out of classrooms in protest against Big Brother-styled CCTV cameras recording their lessons.

They were so angry with the installation of the equipment at Davenant Foundation School in Chester Road, Loughton, they refused to return until they received assurances it had been turned off.

It meant they missed three weeks of studies and led to the drafting of a petition signed by about 150 of their peers.

And when they did return to the classroom they all wore masks to continue their protest.

Good for them. We may assume they are also angry about their details being put on the huge ContactPoint database without their permission.

ContactPoint petition

The ContactPoint database of the 11 million children in England is functioning but has aroused little protest. However, the Independent Schools Council (ISC) representing 500,000 pupils has always been opposed and states that the scheme is:

" disproportionate and unsafe; likely to be an expensive failure and put at risk more children than it helps."

It makes detailed points regarding security, interference with family life, child protection and well-being.

You can request that your child be 'shielded' but, unless you have a very good reason or are a VIP your request will probably be refused. You can also sign the e-petition because your child matters.

Change of Home Secretary but campaign goes on.

The Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith is to step down from her Cabinet post. When Smith took over the Home Office one of her main tasks was to introduce ID cards and the National Identity Register. Once in post she announced that people were always coming up to her to say they were keen to obtain one!

So who will take over? Also, what next for the NO2ID campaign?

The incoming Home Secretary will have to decide whether to press ahead regardless or make concessions over this deeply unpopular scheme. The former option will inflate government spending and bring more resentment from an increasingly angry public and the latter would need careful examination to see whether there was a real climbdown here or yet more spin.

The NO2ID activists and all those interested in maintaining our civil liberties will be following events with interest.

ContactPoint child database goes live despite security fears

John Leyden writes in The Register:

The Government has announced plans to push ahead with the next phase in launch of a controversial child protection database, despite ongoing concerns about the security of data held on the system.

The delayed ContactPoint system, which is due to include names and addresses on every child under 18 in England, will be accessed by frontline care workers in real-life trials for the first time from this Monday.

Security experts contacted by El Reg remain concerned that information housed on the database might leak out despite ministerial assurances on security provisions that will accompany the roll-out of the directory system.

From Monday onwards social workers, police, schools and health officials will have access to data held on the ContactPoint database. The start of frontline trials, announced in the House of Commons last week by Children’s Secretary Ed Balls (Hansard extract below), follows repeated delays in the development of the system.

Manchester not so keen on ID's

Manchester Radio station Key 103 reports on its web site:

We’ve been on the streets of Manchester getting reactions to the announcement.

Everybody we spoke to said they would not be volunteering for the cards or they couldn’t commit at this point. It’s been a lukewarm reception in the North West.

You can listen to the vox pops here.