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The Database State
Our every action tracked, logged
and stored throughout our lives
The government is planning to link many of these databases to your own National Identity number that will be included on ID cards and National Identification Register as such these other databases will in effect become part of the extended nature of the Database state that will be linked to your personal bio-metric information.
TAKE ACTION
- "We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to stop schools from fingerprinting children." - Sign the petition at the No10 website
- Send a letter to The Secretary of State for Health re: personal data on the NHS Summary Care Record on the Spine - an example letter here
- How to opt out from the NHS Summary Care Record on the Spine - BigOptOut
- Reclaim your DNA - GeneWatch campaign "only people convicted of serious violent or sexual offences should be kept permanently on the Database. Other DNA profiles should be removed after fixed time periods or when a person is acquitted. We also believe that the DNA samples should not be kept once the DNA profiles used for identification purposes have been obtained from them".
- Public consultation on the revised CCTV code of practice - The closing date for comments is 31 October 2007
- Urge your MP to sign EDM 686 against school fingerprinting at LeaveThemKidsAlone
DNA Database NHS Summary Care Record on the Spine The Children’s Index
National Vehicle Tracking Database Criminal Records Databases
Latest stories and further reading
Further information on a range of issues
The Foundation for Information Policy Research is an independent body that studies the interaction between information technology and society. Its goal is to identify technical developments with significant social impact, commission and undertake research into public policy alternatives, and promote public understanding and dialogue between technologists and policy-makers in the UK and Europe.
The Open Rights Group is a fast-growing NGO focused on raising awareness of issues such as privacy, identity, data protection, access to knowledge and copyright reform.
Orgwiki is a mine of useful information related to digital rights. It was created by the Open Rights Group to support us in our aim to protect those rights but, like other wikis, is a collaborative effort - anyone can add to it.
UK Liberty - A blog on issues relating to liberty in the UK.
Information Commissioner's Office - "the UK's independent authority set up to promote access to official information and to protect personal information"
The DNA Database
John Reid when Home Secretary, in response to a parliamentary question said that 3,457,000 individuals are on the database, of which a third have no criminal record.
The UK police now over 5% of the UK population on the National DNA database, more DNA samples than any other country.
There is however no evidence to support the claims that by holding more peoples records, more crime will be solved. Yet there is supportive evidence of abuse of the information held on the police database is increasing.
" Since April 2004, the police in England and Wales have been able to take DNA samples without consent from anyone arrested on suspicion of any recordable offence. Recordable offences include begging, being drunk and disorderly and taking part in an illegal demonstration. Both DNA profiles (the string of numbers used for identification purposes) and DNA samples (which contain unlimited genetic information), are kept permanently, even if the person arrested is never charged or is acquitted. A massive expansion in the number of individuals on the Database has not led to any noticable increase in the likelihood of identifying a suspect." - GeneWatch
- Genewatch - Information and campaigns on - The UK Police National DNA Database
- Genewatch - Reclaim Your DNA - campaign
- The Police National DNA Database leaflet
- Privacy International pages on "DNA and Genetic Privacy"
NHS Summary Care Record on the Spine
Currently the government has plans to upload all of our confidential patient records onto a new system called 'the spine' the plans are eventually to link this system to the NIR. There is therefore a real risk that your private medical records will be put onto a unsecured system that is accessible from outside agencies e.g. Police, Social services. It will also mean that more civil servants have easy access to your personal data.
The NHS Confidentiality Campaign - (TheBigOptOut.org) was set up to protect patient confidentiality and to provide a focus for patient-led opposition the government’s NHS Care Records System. This system is designed to be a huge national database of patient medical records and personal information (sometimes referred to as the NHS ’spine’) with no opt-out mechanism for patients at all. It is being rolled out during 2007, and is objectionable for many of the same reasons as the government’s proposed ID database.
NHS IT Info - These pages constitute a dossier of information relating to concerns over the current progress and direction of NHS Connecting for Health's National Programme for Information Technology (NPfIT). This dossier has been compiled over recent months by the set of signatories to open letters calling for an independent inquiry into and detailed technical review of NPfIT, as we continued to learn about the Programme, and is now made available here to a general readership.
E-Health Insider - Library information on National Programme for Information Technology (NPfIT)
The Children’s Index
The Children Act 2004 made provision for a national child database which will contain records for every child under 18 and include contact details of parents/carers and education and health services involved with child. If adopted it will play a central role in the future ID card scheme
- "New government policies designed to safeguard children could put them at increased risk by diverting resources and creating a surveillance culture where parents are sidelined, according to a report published today by the Information Commissioner.
The report, 'Children's Databases: Safety and Privacy', analyses the databases being built to collate information on children in education, youth justice, health, social work and elsewhere. These systems are linking up through the new Information Sharing Index.
The government hopes that sharing information on children will improve child welfare in the UK and reduce the incidence of serious child abuse such as in the Climbi case.
However, the report's authors point out that extending Britain's child protection systems -- from the 50,000 children at substantial risk of serious harm to the 3-4 million children with some health, education or other welfare issue -- means that child protection will receive less attention."
The full FIPR report - "Children’s Databases – Safety and Privacy" requires PDF reader
National Vehicle Tracking Database
From 2006, Britain began to monitor and record the movements of every vehicle on the road.
"A new national surveillance system will record the movements of every vehicle on the road for at least two years. A network of cameras will automatically read every passing vehicle registration plate and this information will be used to create a database of vehicle movements. Police and security services will be able to use this information to analyse the movements of every driver in the country for several years.
Thousands of existing CCTV cameras are being converted to read number plates using Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) technology. These cameras will provide coverage 24/7 on all motorways and major roads as well as cities, towns, ports and petrol station forecourts.
A central database will be installed alongside the National Police Computer in London to store the details of 35 million number plate "reads" taken per day. The information recorded will include time, date and precise location. The camera sites will be monitored by global positioning satellites.
Subsequent developments after the initial launch of the scheme in March 2006 may include extending the storage period to five years and incorporating more cameras into the network, thus increasing the capacity of number plate "reads" per day from 35 million to 100 million." - full details from the OpenRights Group wiki page on the ANPR database
Criminal Records Databases
The Manifesto Club aims to challenge the cultural trends that restrain and stifle people’s aspirations and initiative. Our aim is to bring together people whose ideas don’t necessarily fit into the politics of left and right, but who share a belief in the potential for developing human beings’ creativity and knowledge
OWOS - All News
first two stories our our feeds
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23/01/2008 |
Gordon Brown's plans for identity cards were dealt a blow last night after leaked documents revealed the government plans to delay a national roll out of the scheme for at least two years.
Despite repeated assurances that the controversial scheme is on track, Home Office documents show that the cards will only be issued to UK citizens from 2012 two years later than stated.
The cards were due to be issued to people renewing their passports from 2010 under plans set out two years ago.
They will not be compulsory for British citizens until 2015.
The revelation from documents relating to the "delivery strategy" will prove embarrassing for the Prime Minister, whose support for them has been questioned by opponents.
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Author : Gerri Peev |
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23/01/2008 |
Fresh doubts have arisen over the government's controversial identity cards programme after it emerged that Whitehall is considering a delay in the main roll-out to British citizens.
The setback will fuel a growing belief among both Labour and opposition MPs that recent scandals surrounding the loss of personal data held by the government, continuing problems with IT programmes in Whitehall and doubts over the cost of the ID cards scheme itself are forcing Gordon Brown to delay or scrap it altogether.
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Author : Jimmy Burns |
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24/01/2008 |
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is set to become the first Iranian leader since the revolution to visit Baghdad after the Iraqi foreign ministry announced he had accepted an invitation, at a time of high tension in the Gulf.
The visit was confirmed by the Iranian president's office, but no firm date has been agreed. The visit would mark a breakthrough in relations between Iran and Iraq, which fought an eight-year war in the 1980s that cost hundreds of thousands of lives. It would also represent a challenge to American influence in Iraq, at a time when the US and Iran are vying for regional supremacy. US warships in the Gulf have fired across the bows of Iranian patrol boats once and come close another two times over the past two months.
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Author : Julian Borger |
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24/01/2008 |
Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday held out the prospect of a better relationship with Iran, a day after the US and other world powers drafted a fresh United Nations resolution against Tehran.
The US Secretary of State used an appearance at the World Economic Forum to offer the prospect of a more normalrelationship between the two countries should Iran end its uranium enrichment programme.
Ms Rice went on to say she would meet her Iranian opposite number any place, any time, anywhere to talk about anything. Critics asked why the US would not engage Iran's government diplomatically, she said, but why won't Tehran talk to us?
There have been diplomatic contacts between Tehran and Washington over the past 10 months to discuss the situation in Iraq and Ms Rice has previously held out the prospect of improved relations. Her address on Wednesday said any improved relationship could include growing co-operation, expanding trade and exchange, and the peaceful management of differences
The US had no desire for a permanent enemy in Iran she said. We believe we can resolve this problem through diplomacy.
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Author : Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson |
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04/03/2008 |
A lot of Iraq is not functioning well, but all around you today are encouraging signs
It is the last day of my month in Baghdad and one of the Times drivers is bringing his children to meet me in my hotel. Nowhere else in the world would that be noteworthy, but in Iraq it is remarkable.
I had not seen his family since November 2003, a few months after the US invasion, when I visited their house in western Baghdad. Shortly after that, Iraq began its slide into mayhem. Westerners faced kidnapping and execution. Our driver and his family were forced from their home by sectarian death threats. They returned when the US troop “surge" finally restored a modicum of order last summer, but even then the children were locked inside the house.
As I await their arrival, I reflect that in five years of visiting Iraq this is the first time I have left feeling anything but deeply pessimistic. Even ardent opponents of the US invasion - myself included - could not deny that daily life for most Iraqis is now better, or at least markedly less awful, than it was.
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Author : Martin Fletcher |
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04/03/2008 |
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Complete Withdrawal Of Foreign Troops Only Solution To Iraq's Problems |
The complete withdrawal of foreign troops is the only solution to Iraq's intractable problems, the Guardian's senior foreign correspondent, Jonathan Steele believes.
In a lecture Iraq: The Way Out, organised by the London Middle East Institute at London University's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) Steele described the invasion of Iraq as Britain's worst foreign policy blunder since Suez.
He pointed out that terrorist car bombs are given prominent media coverage since most take place in Baghdad where photographers and reporters have immediate access to the scenes of carnage. As a result, readers and TV viewers have the impression that car bombs are the main danger for Iraqis. In fact, away from the cameras in the smaller towns and the countryside the Americans are taking more lives.
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Author : Jonathan Steele |
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31/01/2008 |
Environment officials are asking for access to thousands of ex-directory phone numbers so that they can alert people when their homes are in danger of being flooded.
However, following lapses in data security, with the government criticised over missing computer disks containing details on millions of child benefit claimants, there may be nervousness about allowing the Environment Agency access to numbers.
Nearly half of households with a landline in the UK now have an ex-directory number. The government's information commissioner, Richard Thomas, will make the decision whether to allow the agency, which is overseeing the UK's floods strategy, the right to have them.
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Author : Jo Revill |
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31/01/2008 |
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Biometrics - Labour Government are still clueless about the technology |
Several eminent academics who do actually know about information security, cryptography, software engineering etc.. have written a letter, published by one of the signatories Dr. Ian Brown on his Blogzilla blog.
Biometrics are not a panacea for data loss:
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Author : |
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29/01/2008 |
On 25th October 2007 the Prime Minister announced that he had asked Paul Dacre, working with Professor David Cannadine and Sir Joseph Pilling, to chair an independent review of the '30-year rule', under which most government records are transferred to The National Archives and made available to the public by the time they are 30 years old.
The review is now in progress and will report to the Prime Minister and the Lord Chancellor by summer 2008.
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Author : |
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29/01/2008 |
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Freedom Of Information: The right to know about history but not current affairs |
It is well known that the wheels of justice can run slowly, but the grinding process of seeking satisfaction under the right-to-know legislation is in danger of transforming requests for information about current affairs into something akin to historical research.
This week, the Information Tribunal ordered the Government to release an early draft of the dossier on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction published ahead of the Iraq war.
The tribunal ruled that ministers should publish the 32-page draft, drawn up by the former Foreign Office head of news John Williams weeks before the final dossier was published in September 2002. This information is now almost six years old and although it is still of political interest, the intervening events, and a new prime minister, mean that it is of more interest to historians than members of the public set on getting to the truth.
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Author : Robert Verkaik |
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24/01/2008 |
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Newly released documents reveal fate of original Guantanamo detainees |
One former Guantanamo captive is studying liberal arts in England. Another is famously free, released from an Australian jail after a U.S. military mandated nine-month prison sentence.
A third is in Kuwait, with his wife and five children, still traumatized, his lawyers says, by his U.S. captivity.
On Jan. 11, 2002, the Pentagon transferred its first 20 men from Afghanistan to its detention center in southeast Cuba, calling them ''the worst of the worst'' of U.S.-held prisoners in the war-on-terror.
Now, a Miami Herald study has found that seven of those men have since gone home, some with little fanfare, others after well-publicized campaigns for their freedom.
Meantime, a dozen of those first detainees remain there - none currently charged with crimes - six years after Pentagon photographs stirred international outrage by showing the men shackled on their knees at Camp X-Ray.
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Author : Carol Rosenberg |
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24/01/2008 |
Spain aided the detention and interrogation of two former Guantanamo detainees, a court has been told.
Jamil el-Banna, 45, from London, and Omar Deghayes, 38, of Brighton, East Sussex, returned to the UK last month but now face deportation to Spain.
On arrival in Britain, the men were held under European arrest warrants alleging they were members of an Al Qaeda cell operating in Spain.
Edward Fitzgerald, QC, told a hearing in London it was "obvious injustice".
Mr Fitzgerald, who is the men's lawyer, told Westminster Magistrates' Court there was compelling evidence the Spanish authorities complied with the so-called "rendition" of the men by allowing the plane carrying them to cross Spanish airspace
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Author : |
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23/01/2008 |
Col. (Retired) Mike Capstick is correct in saying the Afghanistan mission should be about the Afghan people and not about Canada. Unfortunately, he has missed columnist Thomas Walkom's point. The fact remains that it is not our war and it is not even NATO's war. It is another American war for oil.
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Author : |
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23/01/2008 |
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Afghan journalist sentenced to death for distributing paper 'against Islam' |
An Afghan court on Tuesday sentenced a 23-year-old journalism student to death for distributing a paper he printed off the Internet that three judges said violated the tenets of Islam, an official said.
The three-judge panel sentenced Sayad Parwez Kambaksh to death for distributing a paper that humiliated Islam, said Fazel Wahab, the chief judge in the northern province of Balkh, where the trial took place. Wahab did not preside over the trial.
Kambaksh's family and the head of a journalists group denounced the verdict and said Kambaksh was not represented by a lawyer at trial. Members of a clerics council had been pushing for Kambaksh to be punished.
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Author : Amir Shah |
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23/01/2008 |
Reported in Scotland's Sunday Herald just before Christmas (but not seen by me until a few days ago, hence the delay in passing it on) was a tale to gladden the hearts of peaceniks everywhere - namely that the latest upgrade to the US designed Trident D5 nuclear missiles may not actually fit into British submarines.
Clearly falling well within the parameters of the "you couldn't make it up" school of classic cock-ups, the Herald reported that tender documents for future underwater-launched nuclear missiles issued by the US Navy last November specify a missile diameter of up to 120 inches. The diameter of Trident's D5 missile tubes is 87 inches.
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Author : |
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23/01/2008 |
Recent discussion on nuclear weapons policy in Britain has been dominated by two debates. The first, centred on Iran and North Korea, has focused on how best to prevent these states from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. The second, centred on the decision to renew Trident, has been a replay of old and familiar arguments from the 1980s between believers in nuclear deterrence on one hand and advocates of unilateral disarmament on the other. These debates have combined to obscure an important third development: a paradigm shift in thinking about nuclear weapons policy among some of the world's leading nuclear strategists, a shift rich in potential to put multilateral, not unilateral, nuclear disarmament back on the agenda.
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Author : Ian Kearns |
