Another day, another New Labour Governemnt Database

The Nanny state, apparently deeply concerned that it is leaving us any privacy at all, is now turning it’s attention to the creation of a newsuper database to record when we make phone calls, or send emails and who to, oh and all the web sites we visit.

Of course this is purely ‘for our own good’, to protect us all from terrorism. That catchall ‘bogeyman’ excuse of the Authoritarian state, ‘protecting the citizen from the terrorist and criminal’. The same citizen that the State will not permit to defend themselves against criminals with the frequently used threat of prosecution hanging over them if they do.

A Home Office spokesman disingenuously attempted to claim that: "Changes to the way we communicate, due particularly to the internet revolution, will increasingly undermine our current capabilities to obtain communications data - essential for counter-terrorism and the investigation of crime - and use it to protect the public.

Now as far as I know it is still possible for the authorities to tap phone conversations and intercept post, within the law. They do not currently have a database of all letters sent and to whom as far as I am aware. Nor have they ever had one.

So when the spokes person claimed:"Losing the ability to use this data would have very serious consequences for law enforcement and intelligence gathering in the UK." it did not follow logically at all.

The simple fact is that the state already has access to this and more, such as emails and web useage if they suspect someone. It is going too far to monitor us all.
And we all know the State can be trusted to look after this information and not loose it on a bus, or sell it, or something.

And we all know just how much the promise of the State is worth when they say they will only use legislation only for the purpose it was framed.

...Or maybe we could ask Islandic banks about how anti terrorism legislation was recently limbered up ready to be used to freeze Islandic funds in the UK. Or how other legislation was used to silence and eject hecklers from a Labour party conference.

Is anyone listening to us?

Have you ever heard of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000? Have you any idea what it actually results in - in practice?

It means that in the UK A total of 653 state bodies have the power to intercept private communications – private communications including your’s.

This includes 474 Councils who only require a senior council officer to authorise the surveillance.

Many might regard this as sinister enough - and largely unnecessary given that wiretap evidence is not actually admissible in court.

The problem is these wanna-be big brothers are often unaccountable civil servants, absolutely renowned for their ability and competence ;-) You - know, the sort Government Ministers like to use as scapegoats.

In a nine month period, the Communications Commissioner, has found that 122 local authorities sought to obtain people's private communications, in more than 1,600 cases.

Scarily and possibly predictably, it turns out over 1,000 of all the bugging operations measured in that same period were flawed. Including instances where the phones of innocent people who had nothing to do with them were tapped by mistake.

So next time you pick up the phone keep in mind - If you phone someone who works in the same building as a suspected fly tipper then you may be being bugged by a council clerk. Even if you are just phoning a friend you may be being bugged, by mistake, by a council clerk.

Careful what you say…

Is UK Chancellor lying, or just poorly briefed?

There can be very few people in the UK who are not aware by now that the state has managed to misplace the personal details of millions of people. There are probably quite a few who are concerned about where their details will end up.

Your data – safe in their hands - just as well it wasn't the contents of a national ID database.

What’s more when the state is not loosing it they are parcelling it out to private companies.

Alistair Darling claimed in Parliament that the data was lost because:

“it appears that a junior official in HMRC provided the National Audit Office with a full copy of HMRC's data in relation to the payment of child benefit.

In doing so, the strict rules governing HMRC standing procedures were clearly not followed. Those procedures relate to the security of and access to data as well as their transit to ensure that they are properly protected."

Unfortunately it now ‘appears’ that this was nothing like what actually happened.

It seems the National Audit Office (NAO) were checking up on HMRC and needed some details to contact some ‘customers’ at random.

HMRC executives decided to provide the entire child benefit database (including bank account details, addresses and telephone numbers) or nothing, as it would apparently have cost £5K to filter the info – I bet they wish they had spent the money now…

Many of us who regularly handle databases for a living will wonder at this.

NAO insisted they did not need such details and urged the data to be sent as safely as possible. instead the whole database was sent in their internal mail.

The top official dealing with child tax credits, Nigel Jordan, was party to all this and could not possibly be accurately described as a junior official. He was senior enough to have chaired government committees on tax credit policy.

Is Alistair Darling telling Porkies, or just poorly briefed?

Big Brother really is watching you

In order to comply with an EU directive on the retention of phone data, this July, the UK Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, agreed a new law, under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 requiring phone companies to log every call, or text message, sent to and from every phone in Britain.

We should be concerned about this because it is effectively being imposed on the UK by a directive. It is being done under a law made up by the Government, not Parliament and then just slid in with little democratic oversight under a seven year old act.

The details logged include: The subscriber information, calls made, calls received and the location where the calls are made from.

We should be concerned about that because it is deeply intrusive. There will be the usual tired old excuses about if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear that the more naive and trusting old grannies actually believe, but this is yet another erosion of our privacy on the road to a total surveillance society.

Much of this information is in fact not restricted to the police, or security services as you might imagine.

No - It can be accessed by virtually any local authority, government department, body, or Quango who cares to. Including, but not limited to, the DSS, the Gaming Board, the Food Standards Authority and every District and County Council in the country. Around 652 public bodies in all.

The civil rights group Liberty are rightly concerned over this and so should everyone else be. Your local council can, if it wishes, unbeknown to you, build up profile of your personal relationships, on the basis of who you speak to and when you do it.

Make no mistake. Now these powers are there to be used, they will, sooner or later, be used. They are another nail in Liberty’s coffin.

Our privacy is not in the governments gift

I was going to do a piece on the Labour State’s ever expanding DNA database, presumably, whatever lies they come out with, eventually destined, if only by political ‘gravity’, to contain a record of all UK citizen’s DNA.

However I came upon this excellent commentary on it by Sam Leith in the daily Telegraph entitled “Our privacy belongs to us not the Government”, so include the link here - it is well worth a read.

Here is another excellent piece, this time in the Guardian, by Henry Porter on the subject.

You know you really need to worry when both the Telegraph and the Guardian are worried about something…