Intercept Modernisation Programme

Please take a moment to give your views to the government regarding the Intercept Modernisation Programme. The consultation link is here. You only have until 20th July 2009
Here are a few criticisms of the programme:

# The plans are thought to involve spending £2bn on paying ISPs to install deep packet inspection equipment within their own networks, and obliging them to perform the cross-correlation and profiling of their users' behaviour.

# About 40 per cent of ISPs at say they do not currently have the capability to store the data. Hence costs will rise.

# "It is a hallmark of free societies that whilst the police target criminal suspects, government does not monitor the entire population."
Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti.

# "Officials from dozens of departments and quangos could know what you read online, and who all your friends are, who you emailed, when, and where you were when you did so - all without a warrant. ...Tracking your your every move is more efficiently creepy than reading your letters."
Guy Herbert, general secretary of NO2ID.

# Both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives have voiced their opposition to the idea so it would be best not to proceed in the current financial climate until the next election.

# "deep packet inspection is the electronic equivalent of opening people's mail. This is very important to me, as what is at stake is the integrity of the internet as a communications medium, clearly we must not interfere with the internet, and we must not snoop on the internet."
Sir Tim Berners-Lee (Inventor of the internet.)

# The collection and searching of information on all telephone calls, texts, emails and web-browsing will be accessible to dozens of organisations without a warrant.


To respond to the consultation, you can email communicationsdataconsultation@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
or send your response by post to:

Nigel Burrowes
Communications Data Consultation
Room P.5.37
Home Office
2 Marsham Street
London SW1P 4DF

Remember, this consultation ends on 20 July 2009.

DNA consultation

Please take a few moments to reply to the government's DNA database consultation before 7th August 2009.

This consultation intends to promote public debate on how long we should retain fingerprints and DNA.

Here are a few ideas that you could use:

# Figures show that for the past six years the number of crimes solved using DNA evidence has remained static at about one in 300 of all recorded crimes. Over the same period the number of people on the national DNA database more than doubled in size from 1.9million people to 4.1million. A smaller database would be much cheaper and also more effective.

# The European Court of Human Rights has ruled against retention of the DNA of innocent people.

# It is disrespectful to Parliament that plans for the police to keep innocent people's DNA profiles for up to 12 years may become law without a Commons vote. The use of a 'statutory instrument' to get this through Parliament is undemocratic.

# The UK has the largest national DNA database of any country in the world. Over 7% of the British population has a profile on the national database, compared to 1% of Austrians and 0.5% of Americans.

# The numbers of profiles stored are now so large that 'false positives' have become a statistical probability.

# Over 800,000 children have their profiles stored.

You can email your response to DNAconsultation@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

Or write to:

Alan Brown
DNA Consultations
Police Powers and Protection Unit,
4th Floor, Peel Building,
2 Marsham Street,
London SW1P 4DF

This consultation closes on 7 August 2009

Lobby your MP now

The Conservatives have called for a debate on ID cards this Monday 6th July. Key statutory instruments required before the scheme can proceed have still to be laid before Parliament. See the Public register.

As part of the initial proposals for the NIS, applicants for the new generation of biometric passports – due to be available by 2011 – would have their personal data placed on the NIR. Applicants could also then choose to have an ID card, but their refusal would not mean the removal of their data from the NIR.

Parliament is expected, this week and next, to approve this retention proposal in two batches of draft legislation. They would provide the Home Office with the powers to make the passport a "designated document" under the NIS. This would make its data eligible for entry onto the NIR.

The regulations may also include powers to levy a fine of up to £1,000 on those who fail to tell the authorities of a change of address or amend other key personal details such as a change of name within three months.

Isabella Sankey, director of policy at Liberty, complained that the NIS is still compulsory in practice:

"However you spin it, big ears, four legs and a long trunk still make an elephant. And this white elephant would be as costly to privacy and race equality as to our purses."

It would be well worth telling your MP your views regarding the National Identity Register and the ID card scheme before this debate. Please contact your MP now.

Congratulations Sheffield City Council

Yorkshire NO2ID tells us that Sheffield City Council has passed a strongly worded motion opposing ID cards and the Database State. The motion highlights the Manchester trials confirming that Sheffield will not take part in any trials of the scheme:

“The Council notes with deep concern that Manchester has agreed to pilot ID Cards as part of the process to impose compulsory ID Cards on the rest of the UK”

Henry Porter writing on his Guardian Blog has highlighted the Motion using it as an example of a “Little Green Shoot of Liberty”. NO2ID were present at the Council meeting and the Sheffield group is celebrating this victory in the fight against the Database State.

The motion was highly critical of Schemes such as Club Scan that has been introduced as a Licensing condition in some London Boroughs....

“ensure that systems such as ‘ClubScan’ are not made a requirement for licensing of city venues;”

...and also the use of biometric fingerprinting in School, which is something one of our sister campaigns ‘Leave Them Kids Alone’ have been vocal in opposing:

“reject the use of biometric fingerprinting in schools;”

Wouldn't it be good if Birmingham City Council followed this example?

ps Ironically the MP for Sheffield, Brightside is David Blunkett, nicknamed Big Blunkett in reference to Orwell's Big Brother for his sterling work in support of ID cards, RIPA etc. He has also worked for Entrust, a security company involved in this sphere of work.

Pigs might fly

The Home Secretary has decided not to antagonise the unions so neither pilots nor airside workers are going to be obliged to carry government ID and be on the National Identity Register(NIR).

Mr Johnson has also announced that ID cards will never be compulsory (except for foreign nationals) and this has been the main emphasis by of the media. He is either using weasel words to mislead the public or he genuinely doesn't know that the main objection to ID cards is the fact that about 50 pieces of personal information will be put on a giant national database in order for you to obtain a passport when mandatory biometric passports are rolled out.

Make sure you renew yours before this happens else you won't be able to retain your civil liberties and travel at the same time.

But really nothing has changed. We have already been told:

From 2012 anyone applying for or renewing a passport in the UK will also enrol their fingerprint biometrics on the NIR and will be able to choose whether they want a biometric passport,an identity card or both.

The ID card idea remains very much alive. Free ID cards are to be given to the over 75s and students are to be encouraged to have them as a convenient way of proving their age. If you are in any doubt have a look at Safeguarding Identity published by the government last week. This tells you that the NIR is the foundation stone of future government services.

p 26 tells us that:
A common definition of identity will be accepted across government- the new NIR will be commonly used across Government as a single, convenient and secure system for establishing and using identity.

You will have a 'unique identifier' or number and there will be a single 'gateway' to all public sector services so you will probably find it convenient to have a plastic ID card as you will already have an e-IDentity.

So, the fight goes on. The NIR is the basis of a labyrinth of proposals which will make your life easy - your information will be totally secure - no details will be shared without your permission and pigs might fly.

Take a look at 'safeguarding identity' and then I think we should ask the Conservatives and Lib Dems whether they will do away with the NIR and if so how do they intend to patrol the labyrinth?

Next NO2ID meeting

Birmingham NO2ID will meet at 7.30pm this Tuesday, 30th June, at Bennett's Bar, 8, Bennett's Hill, Birmingham B2 5RS. All are welcome.

Giving power back to the people.

David Cameron's speech is linked to for reference. He informs us that we are living in 'a control state,' and he tells us how he will reform this and give us back our civil liberties. He makes a few extremely welcome and definite promises:

..."the next Conservative Government will scrap the Contact Point database of children's details. We will scrap the ID Card scheme....And we will remove innocent people's records from the DNA database."

He mentions the NIR (National Identity Register), the huge national database which is to back passports and ID cards, but does not state categorically that he will do away with this.

We thoroughly welcome his promises but we must hold him to them and ask for more details regarding his proposals.

Unfortunately, we have experience of governments not keeping to manifesto promises.

I have just come across this article by Mark Thomas. It includes the above download that might be handy to carry during during this (hopefully) long, hot summer.

ps Perhaps this Stop and Search card might be helpful to NO2ID campaigners running stands in areas where the powers that be are less then helpful?

Tories to scrap ContactPoint but rollout continues.

CYPnow Children & Young People Now, tells us that:

Councils will not stall on rolling out ContactPoint the controversial database containing details of 11 million children in England.

The long-term future of the system, which cost £224m to develop, is in doubt after the Conservatives revealed they would scrap it should the party come to power at the next general election.

But Conservative councillor Les Lawrence, chair of the Local Government Association's children and young people's board, said the Conservative policy would not affect the way councils approach the rollout.

He said: "All local authorities work on the basis of ensuring they work within the law.To act outside that would be to hold the current elected government in contempt.In that sense they will fulfil the letter of the law, whether every single authority fulfils the spirit is a matter of conjecture."

Lawrence added that a number of authorities do have concerns around the security of children's information in the system.

Liverpool City Council has written to the government seeking assurances on a number of issues. A spokesman for the council said the authority will continue to adopt the system but is concerned about possible civil liberty implications.

These include the security of the information held in the database and whether parents and schools are fully aware of the system's introduction. ( From a small,personal survey, I can assure you they are not; most teachers and parents I have spoken to have never heard of it.)

Professionals working with children are currently undergoing training to enable them to use the online database.

A number of early adopter authorities, as well as the charities Barnardo's and Kids, are already ahead of a national rollout planned for later this year.

Deep packet inspection

The Wall Street Journal reports that:

The Iranian regime has developed, with the assistance of European telecommunications companies, one of the world's most sophisticated mechanisms for controlling and censoring the Internet, allowing it to examine the content of individual online communications on a massive scale.

Interviews with technology experts in Iran and outside the country say Iranian efforts at monitoring Internet information go well beyond blocking access to Web sites or severing Internet connections. The Iranian government appears to be engaging in a practice often called deep packet inspection, which enables authorities to not only block communication but to monitor it to gather information about individuals, as well as alter it for disinformation purposes, according to these experts.

China's vaunted "Great Firewall," which is widely considered the most advanced and extensive Internet censoring in the world, is believed also to involve deep packet inspection.

Human-rights groups have criticized the selling of such equipment to Iran and other regimes considered repressive, because it can be used to crack down on dissent.

However, the UK proposes using deep packet inspection in its Intercept Modernisation Programme in order to protect its citizens!!

“the objective of the Intercept Modernisation Programme (IMP) is to maintain the UK’s lawful intercept and communications data capabilities in the changing communications environment. It is a cross-government programme, led by the Home Office, to ensure that our capability to lawfully intercept and exploit data when fighting crime and terrorism is not lost. It was established in response to my right honourable friend the Prime Minister’s national security remit in 2006.”
See here.

NHS database delays increase

There is one aspect of the National Identity Register and ID cards that is rather reassuring, namely that our government is in charge of it. So it may be some time....

The chaos encompassing the plan to computerise all NHS records linked to a central database or 'spine' is still having major problems. news.zdet reports that:

The government was warned back in 2004 that immediate action was needed to fix problems in the £12.7bn programme to revamp NHS IT. The National Programme for IT (NPfIT) is facing a number of difficulties: key projects to digitise patient records by 2014-2015 are already running four years late, two major suppliers have walked away from the project and there is no practical central mechanism to manage health trusts' expenditure on implementation and training activities.

Reviews of the delivery of the Care Records Service (CRS) found bad feeling towards the electronic medical records project among clinicians had been compounded by technical difficulties. These included suppliers missing deadlines for rollouts of patient administration systems (PAS) and delays in the deployment of the Spine central database, which limited the tasks the PAS could be used for.

Earlier this year the Public Accounts Committee, described the Department of Health's progress on CRS as "very disappointing" and said if the deployment of the scheme did not improve, the department should consider abandoning the planned national implementation of it.


The Department of Health's response:

New IT systems in the NHS are delivering better, safer and faster care."

If you haven't already done so go to the The Big Opt Out and prevent having your GP data uploaded to the 'spine'.

ID card contract delayed

The Register tells us that:

The Home Office confirmed yesterday it is delaying awarding the key contract for the national ID card project - actually making the cards for UK citizens.

Fujitsu, IBM and Thales were all in the running to make the cards. But this contract will not now be awarded until autumn 2010 - after the general election, which at the moment is the Tories' to lose.

The timing is slightly suspicious - shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling yesterday wrote to all five suppliers warning them not to sign their lives away on a project the Tories have promised to scrap. Could it be that the suppliers told the Home Office they didn't want to sign anything just yet?

However, it is salutary to remember that Mr Grayling has pledged to honour two super-size contracts to procure a biometric identity database for the vast majority of UK citizens who possess a passport.

Stockholm Programme

Both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have pledged to scrap the ID card system and the National Identity Register(NIR). However, it is unclear as to how they will reconcile these promises with the proposals set out in the EU's 'Stockholm Programme. The legal powers to establish this new techno-surveillance are delivered to Brussels by the Lisbon Treaty.

The European Civil Liberties Network (ECLN) has published a Statement calling on civil society groups and individuals to voice their opinions on the EU's Stockholm programme and work towards a democratic Europe:

The “Stockholm Programme” sets the agenda for EU justice and home affairs and internal security policy from 2010 to 2014 and will extend militarised border controls, discriminatory immigration policies, mandatory and proactive surveillance regimes and an increasingly aggressive external security and defence policy. The ECLN believes these policies constitute an attack on civil liberties and human rights. It calls for active civil society engagement and opposition to dangerous authoritarian tendencies within the EU.

Tony Bunyan, the Statewatch editor, comments:

"What stands out are the proposals related to the Future Group report. A promise to balance better data protection and EU standards for "Privacy Enhancing Technology" with the law enforcement agencies demands for access to all information and communications. An "information system architecture" to bring about the sharing of all data across the EU. The use of "security technologies" to harness the "digital tsunami" to gather through mass surveillance personal data on peoples' everyday activities through public-private partnerships.

What is new is the clear aim of creating the surveillance society and the database state. Future generations, for whom this will be a fully developed reality, will look back at this era and rightly ask, why did you not act to stop it."

Interception Modernisation Programme.

A report by the LSE on the Interception Modernisation Programme which involves the surveillance of the communications activities of all UK citizens is summarised by finchannel:

# The proposals can only work if entirely new laws are passed by Parliament and if the public can be persuaded that the threats from terrorism and crime are so extensive as to justify ever greater levels of intrusion and expenditure.

# How was the quoted cost of £2bn reached, what is and what is not included in the cost estimates and from where are the costs to be met?

# Is it still feasible to distinguish between content and communications data?

# Who will actually control the 'DPI' (Deep Packet inspection) 'Black Boxes' to be installed at content service providers?

# We think that at a practical level the communications data/intercept distinction will be impossible to intercept both for ISPs and the courts. Moreover the existing balance of protections against abuse will also be lost.


'We are also concerned that the Home Office is characterising its aims as maintaining an interception capability when police powers and capabilities to watch the public have increased significantly over the last 15 years. We need a full debate about the balance between threats to public safety, police powers, the effectiveness of safeguards and cost.'

Sir Tim Berners-Lee states:

" deep packet inspection is the electronic equivalent of opening people's mail. This is very important to me, as what is at stake is the integrity of the internet as a communications medium, clearly we must not interfere with the internet, and we must not snoop on the internet."

After all he did invent the internet and bestowed it on the world for free!