Henry Porter

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Coalition of actors, writers and academics defends WikiLeaks

Thursday 7 April 2011, WikiLeaksOpenLetter.com

More than 200 prominent public figures have signed a letter published in New Statesman today strongly defending WikiLeaks’ right to publish. The letter, presented by the Frontline Club, was assembled by a group of well-known publishers, journalists and filmmakers known as the Committee for the Right to Publish, which includes writer Henry Porter and human rights activist Jemima Khan.

Protection of Freedoms Bill

11.02.11 Home Office

The Protection of Freedoms Bill was introduced into the House of Commons on 11 February 2011. In the Queen’s Speech of May 2010, the government announced the introduction of legislation that would 'restore freedoms and civil liberties through the abolition of identity cards and unnecessary laws'. Following this commitment, the Home Office introduced the Identity Documents Bill, which received Royal Assent in December 2010. Identity cards and the National Identity Register have now been abolished. The Protection of Freedoms Bill marks the next step in the government’s legislative programme to safeguard civil liberties and reduce the burden of government intrusion into the lives of individuals. The bill and explanatory notes can be found on the Parliament website.

The Freedom Bill is a step back to sanity

February 11th, 2011, By Philip Johnston, Telegraph

Finally, we are seeing Labour’s illiberal snooper state cut down to size. The Freedom Bill will cut back the lunatic requirement on adults taking children to football training or cathedral flower arrangers to obtain a criminal record check. This does not mean, as its detractors are already starting to claim, that our children will now be at any greater risk than they were before. It is a common sense approach that has been all too rare in government in recent years. The last Labour administration appeared to take the view that the entire country was a pool of prospective offenders, a national criminal ID parade that had to be controlled, logged, nannied and tick-boxed to distraction. ... Nick Clegg, who deserves credit for pushing this agenda, said in the Daily Telegraph today: “Freedom is back in fashion.” But for most of the country it never went out of fashion. The politicians took it upon themselves to impose constraints on people that they never wanted and did not vote for.

11 Feb 2011, By Ian Dunt, Politics.co.uk

Civil liberties activists were carefully scrutinising details of the protection of freedom bill today, after the government finally published details of how it would restore British freedoms. The long-heralded bill, which was originally conceived when Nick Clegg was home affairs spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, is the third significant step towards unravelling Labour's various criminal justice laws during its 13 years in office following the scrapping of ID cards and the review of counter-terrorism laws. "Freedom is back in fashion," the deputy prime minister wrote in a piece for the Daily Telegraph.

11 Feb 2011, By Tom Whitehead, Telegraph

The DNA of up to one million innocent people will be wiped from the national database as part of the biggest reform of civil liberties in more than 300 years. Only the profiles of people suspected of serious offences of sex or violence will be retained and only for a maximum of five years, under plans unveiled in the Protection of Freedoms Bill published yesterday. The move ends a three-year campaign by civil liberty groups after a European Court ruled the blanket, indefinite retention of DNA of innocent people was unlawful. However, it will be at least a year before samples begin to be deleted because police chiefs will not change their policy until the proposals become law. The reform is one of a raft of measures contained in the bill aimed at curtailing the widespread intrusion of privacy and civil liberties by the state, much of which was introduced by the last Government. Others proposals include a significant scaling back of vetting and criminal record checks, more powers for the public around CCTV, making it a criminal offence to wheel-clamp vehicles on private land and a major reduction of state powers to snoop on people. A major culling of the 1,200 different powers available to officials to enter a home and a ban on schools fingerprinting children without their parent's consent are also planned.

11 February 2011, SA Mathieson, Guardian Professional

The government has announced plans for a regulator and code for public authorities using CCTV and automatic numberplate recognition (ANPR) cameras. Its newly published protection of freedoms bill includes a clause for the home secretary to appoint a commissioner and publish a statutory code of conduct for the use of both technologies. Local authorities and police forces will have to "have regard to the surveillance code", according to the bill, which may be cited in court or tribunals. However, individuals will not face civil or criminal charges for failing to follow it. The surveillance camera commissioner will be charged with "encouraging compliance with the surveillance camera code, reviewing the operation of the code, and providing advice about the code". He or she will also prepare an annual report for Parliament and the home secretary.

11 Feb 2011, By Tom Whitehead, Telegraph

Employers who make ridiculous requests for criminal record checks will face penalties, including potential fines of thousands of pounds, under a revamp of the vetting system. The much criticised Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS) will on Friday be scrapped and replaced with a significantly scaled back system that only targets those who have intensive and close contact with children and vulnerable adults, as disclosed by The Daily Telegraph last week. The shake-up will include punishments for employers or bodies that knowingly or repeatedly demand checks on people that are inappropriate or even illegal. The move is designed to stop over the top requests such as the case last year when volunteer flower arrangers at a 900-year-old cathedral threatened to quit after they were forced to undergo background checks.

11 Feb 2011, Martin Bentham, This is London

Police will be still be able to search people without suspicion using counter-terrorism powers despite pledges to curb the practice, it emerged today. A new law to replace Section 44 - under which tens of thousands of people were searched randomly - will let officers frisk people "regardless of whether" they have a reasonable suspicion the person is involved in terrorism. Crime prevention minister James Brokenshire insisted the legislation would lead to far fewer people being checked than under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000. This let police stop and search without grounds for suspicion in any area covered by the power. At one point, this included the whole of London, although the Met scaled this back. The new law will permit searches only in areas where a senior police officer "reasonably suspects" a terrorist act might be committed.

11 February 2011, James Nixon, Thinq.co.uk

Police powers that could see the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) being able to suspend the domain names of websites without a court order are being considered by registrar Nominet. Nominet, the body responsible for adminstering UK internet domain registrations, has issued a formal call for interested parties to join discussions on the proposal. If agreed, the organisation will change its terms and conditions to enable the requested powers. Such a move would make it easier for police to take down domains such as Fitwatch.org.uk, the site set up to protest against alleged abuses of police surveillance powers. Last November, the site's web hosting was pulled after a request from the Metropolitan Police. The move came after the outfit published advice to student tuition fee protestors on how to evade detection. Crucially, though, police didn't have the power to seize its domain name - the recognisable web address used by most users - enabling the site to resurface days later, hosted by a 'safe' ISP based in the US - beyond the jurisdiction of UK law enforcement. Under the proposed powers, police will be able to request that Nominet suspends domains believed to be used for criminal purposes.

11 February 2011, Anh Nguyen, Computerworld UK

Gwent Police has been found to have breached the Data Protection Act (DPA) after it accidentally emailed the results of 10,006 Criminal Reference Bureau (CRB) checks to a journalist. A CID data management staff member at Gwent Police mistakenly copied the journalist, from online news site The Register, into an email that contained a spreadsheet of the CRB results. The IT staff member was using the auto-complete function in Novell’s email software and had intended to send the email to five police staff colleagues.

11th February 2011, By Richard Catton » York Press

PERSONAL details of a man charged with sexual offences have mistakenly been sent to another York man. Alan Wilson, of Leeman Road, was shocked to receive the information from City of York Council, including the name and address of the man, a stranger to him, who is at the centre of an inquiry into indecent images of children. Mr Wilson, who is currently involved in a social services case with the council, is now refusing to return the document unless the authority can assure him his own confidential details have not been mistakenly sent to anyone. The council has responded by bringing legal proceedings against him for not sending it back. Mr Wilson said the information was contained within paperwork about his own case, which was sent to him, his ex-wife and her mother. He said: “I am willing to give them [the council] it back, but I want to make sure the council hasn’t also sent my details, by accident, to anyone else. I don’t want people knowing my business. This man could have been lynched if it had been sent to the wrong kind of person, but they don’t seem bothered by that, they just want their piece of paper back.”

10 February, 2011, by JOSIE HINTON, Camden News Journal

PUPILS at one of Camden’s top secondary schools may have to provide fingerprints to get their school lunches. Scanners could be installed at Parliament Hill School in Highgate Road, Highgate, to speed up queues in the canteen. Replacing the current swipe cards, the cashless system would use students’ biometric data to record payments for school meals. If approved, Parliament Hill will become the first state school in Camden to use the technology as part of students’ daily routine. Staff say it would save “time and money” by tackling the problem of lost or broken cards, but critics argue that it is a “softening up” exercise to condition children to accept a creeping surveillance society.

10 Feb 2011, By Nick Clegg, Telegraph

Today the Government is publishing a Freedom Bill. A piece of legislation that brings together a raft of measures to restore hard-won British liberties that have been lost in recent years. Like ending the indefinite storage of innocent people’s DNA. Reining in stop-and-search powers too easily misused by the police. Properly regulating CCTV to put the breaks on the surveillance state and making sure that local people have a say on CCTV in their area, telling us what they want and don’t want. Preventing schools from fingerprinting children without their parents’ consent. These steps, along with a host of others, will help deliver on a promise I made last month: that 2011 will be the year the Coalition Government gives people their freedom back. It follows action already taken to halt ID cards. And to turn off ContactPoint – the central government database containing the personal details of every child in England.

10 Feb 2011, By Tom Whitehead and James Kirkup, Telegraph

Victims of intrusive CCTV will get the right to take councils to court for the first time under new powers to reign in state surveillance, The Daily Telegraph can disclose. Any member of the public will be able to refer a local authority for judicial review if they can argue their cameras were set up or are being used inappropriately. It means town halls risk legal action if they expand their CCTV schemes without proper public consultation or have cameras intruding on someone's privacy such as constantly pointing at private homes. The move is part of the biggest reform of civil liberties in more than 300 years to be unveiled today. The Protection of Freedoms Bill contains a raft of measures to row back what is seen as widespread intrusions of privacy, many introduced by the last Government. They include tearing up the controversial anti-paedophile vetting scheme, making it a criminal offence to wheel-clamp vehicles on private land, a dramatic restriction on the storing of the DNA of innocent people and a scaling back of state powers to snoop on people. A major culling of the hundreds of different powers available to officials to enter a home and a ban on schools fingerprinting children without their parent's consent are also expected.

10 February 2011, SA Mathieson, Guardian Professional

Damian Green has marked the end of the identity card scheme by feeding its drives into an industrial shredder in Essex. The immigration minister fed some of the last batch of 500 hard drives, which were used to hold the national identity register, into a giant crushing machine at RDC in Witham, Essex on 10 February. "This marks the final end of the identity card scheme: dead, buried and crushed," he said. "What we are destroying today is the last elements of the national identity register, which was always the most objectionable part of the scheme." Green fed the drives into a machine with two metal rollers with inch-wide teeth, which produced sparks when they crushed the hardware. The resulting waste will be burnt. "Politics isn't usually this physical," the minister remarked while doing so.

February 10 2011, By Staff Writer , People with Voices

Campaigners have welcomed the Government’s commitment to destroy millions of samples of DNA from innocent citizens from the national criminal database. The provisions set out in The Freedom Bill have dealt a death blow to the database which critic argued criminalised black Britons.

10 February 2011, By Nigel Morris, Independent

Identity cards will be consigned to history today as the database recording the biometric details of thousands of people goes up in flames. Hard disk drives from the national identity register, which underpinned the ID card scheme, will be shredded and incinerated in a symbolic demonstration of efforts to rein back the "database state" and restore civil liberties. It will be followed by measures to take innocent people off the national DNA database, introduce controls against the proliferation of CCTV cameras and cut councils' use of covert surveillance of residents. Mandatory criminal record checks on millions of employees will be eased and wheel-clamping of cars on private land banned. Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, will hail the moves as evidence of the Liberal Democrats' influence on the Coalition's agenda. Sceptics will argue that the Government needs to be bolder in rolling back state intrusion and say it can be judged only by the impact of the measures on everyday life.

10th February 2011, Chris Cheesman, Amateur Photographer

Tables have been turned on security staff at a major entertainments complex as police tell management they were wrong to stop an amateur photographer from taking pictures outside. Simon St. Clare, who is unemployed, was planning to take a few snaps of the Xscape sports and leisure complex in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire on Monday afternoon before heading inside to see a film. But, his plans ended in disarray when two security guards stopped him, claiming that it was a 'privately-owned' building, it was illegal and he needed permission. The security guards threatened to call police if he did not leave the area - Simon told them to go ahead. 'When the two police officers arrived they took my details and then let me go,' he told us. 'They [police] were polite and reasonable and said I had done nothing wrong.' Police asked Simon to 'stop and account' and, though he initially refused, he gave the officers his personal details to avoid further confrontation.

February 10 2011, This is Hull and East Riding

Beverley and Holderness MP Graham Stuart has criticised a growing demand for Criminal Record Bureau (CRB) checks. It comes after snack bar operator Paul St Clair alerted the MP that he had been told by East Riding Council to obtain a CRB check, usually required for those working with children. Mr St Clair operates in a lay by on the A1079 and only comes into contact with children when they are accompanied by adults. The MP claims the council's request is the latest example of "the growing misuse of these checks".

10 February 2011, Jennie Bristow, Spiked

The Liberal-Conservative government’s announcement that the controversial Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS) will be ‘very significantly’ curtailed is very welcome. Under its new incarnation, rather than seeking to subject anybody who works or volunteers with children to a police check, the vetting scheme will reportedly focus on ‘those in sensitive posts or who have intensive contact with children or vulnerable people’. The onus will shift to employers ensuring that people are checked, rather than individuals themselves; and in a move apparently designed to address concerns about civil liberties and the errors thrown up by the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB), criminal record checks will no longer be sent directly to potential employers, but to the individual first to allow them to challenge any concerns or suspected errors.

10 February 2011, Patrick Hayes, Spiked

The media have responded to May’s recent announcement that ASBOs will be replaced with a new ‘toolkit’ consisting of Criminal Behaviour Orders (CBOs) and Crime Prevention Injunctions (CPIs) by dismissing it as a ‘rebranding’ exercise. In fact, these new behaviour orders promise to be more insidious and divisive than their predecessors.

Read more...

Privacy fears over survey

10th February 2011, By Morwenna Blake » Salisbury Journal

A SURVEY sent out by Wiltshire Council asking people to confirm personal details such as their sexuality and how much money they have in the bank has been raising eyebrows. The eight-page document has been delivered to 26,500 households across the county in order to help the council develop its housing and planning policy. The survey, reported to be costing the council £22,000, also asks people questions about their levels of debt and what academic qualifications their children have. One recipient of the survey was Jack Leeming of Bower Gardens, who said: “This latest council bandwagon is, no doubt, costing thousands of pounds. Let us hope its advocates can distinguish between a bandwagon and a hearse.” Another recipient, who asked not to be named, said: “What an intrusion into privacy, what a waste of money, what a cheek. “This is not what we pay such high council tax for.”

February 10 2011, Public Service

Data breaches committed by Ealing and Hounslow councils would not be tolerated in Public Sector Networks, writes Graeme Stewart, business development director for the UK public sector at Sophos. He says the fines they face are more of a 'mild rebuke' than a deterrent. The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) issued its third and fourth fines on 8 February, with Ealing and Hounslow councils facing financial penalties of £80,000 and £70,000 respectively for breaching the Data Protection Act. Ealing Council lost the personal information of almost 1,000 clients, and Hounslow Council lost 700 clients' details when two, council-issued, un-encrypted laptops were stolen from an employee's home – and the sensitive information was only password protected.

10th February 2011, By Jane Fae Ozimek • The Register

An obsession with child protection in the UK and throughout the EU is encouraging a cavalier approach to law-making, which less democratic regimes are using to justify much broader repression on any speech seen as extreme or dangerous. That was the accusation made by academic and online legal expert, Dr Yaman Akdeniz, at last week’s Onscenity Conference in London. Dr Akdeniz, now an Associate Professor of Law with Istanbul's Bilgi University, was concerned with what he saw as a "domino effect". He said: "The UK and EU are supporting measures that allow for websites to be censored on the basis of purely administrative processes, without need for judicial oversight." He went on to explain that even though the EU endorses very high principles when it comes to censorship, its practice often falls far short, with different working groups facing both ways on this issue. He said: "Several countries within the EU operate secret block lists, which makes it even harder for individuals to know what is going on or for due process of law to be carried out."

10th February 2011, By John Oates • The Register

Nominet is asking for feedback on proposals from the police which would allow them to "switch off" websites used by criminals. The UK domain registrar is setting up an issues group to look at the change which would bolster police powers quite dramatically – assuming the pesky crims stick to .uk websites of course. The proposals would allow police to ask Nominet to remove sites from the .uk registry if police say they have reasonable grounds to believe they're being used for criminal activity. You can apply to join the Nominet discussion group here. The closing date for applications is 23 February.

10th February 2011, By Fiona Pendlebury » Bournemouth News

A Boscombe resident says he is being threatened with an ASBO by Bournemouth Council for exercising his civil liberties. Gary Sherborne who plans to stand as an independent councillor in May, is said to have filmed people against their will causing alarm and distress, shouted ‘confrontationally and acted aggressively at public meetings. Mr Sherborne, of Grosvenor Gardens, Boscombe, however says he was just exercising his democratic rights. He said: “It is an exaggeration of what is my right to be involved in public meetings, also my right to film in public open spaces, councillors and anyone engaged in civic duty.

9 February 2011, Matthew Hall, Our Kingdom

On Monday night at a lobby of a Lambeth council meeting to protest against 30% cuts to public services in the borough; policemen entered the council chamber. Who invited them in, and what they were expected to do is still unclear but the precedent could be important and seems to fit a worrying pattern that is developing in our democracy.

9 February 2011, By James Thompson, Independent

Retail pharmacists and opticians will win a reprieve after it emerged the Government is poised to scale back the reach of its controversial Vetting and Barring Scheme, which would have covered some 100,000 staff. As part of the Freedom Bill, the Home Office minister Lynne Featherstone is due to present her review to Parliament as early as Friday and is set to exclude all sales staff working in high-street pharmacies and opticians. Instead, the scheme is likely to cover only opticians and pharmacists, such as those at Boots and Specsavers. As originally proposed, the British Retail Consortium estimated the scheme would have cost health-related shops "at least" £6m to carry out checks on nearly 100,000 staff.

9th February 2011, By James Slack, Daily Mail

Police will be banned from routinely storing the DNA of innocent people in a significant scaling back of state powers. There will also be a dramatic curtailment of the 1,200 powers that currently allow authorities to enter an individual’s home. The measures will join the crackdown on wheel-clampers in Friday’s Protection of Freedoms Bill – along with tighter regulation of CCTV cameras and council snooping. Police are to be banned from routinely storing the DNA of innocent people. Under controversial laws introduced by Labour, police can indefinitely store the DNA of anybody arrested for a crime – regardless of whether they are ever charged. As a result, there are an astonishing 1.1million innocent citizens stored on the vast ‘Big Brother-style’ database. The powers have been savaged by civil liberties groups and ruled unlawful by the European courts. Now they will be torn up by the Coalition and replaced by tighter controls.

9th February 2011, By Daily Mail Reporter

A school has been branded a 'high security prison' after it installed 112 CCTV cameras to spy on its pupils. The sheer number means that there is now an average of one camera per 10 students at Stoke Park School and Community Technology College in Coventry. The school - which has 1,090 pupils aged 11-18 - has 33 CCTV cameras covering the outside and 79 fixed inside the buildings and outside classrooms. Governors spent around £10,000 on the cameras in the past 12 months after a spate of break-ins and thefts. However parents and civil rights groups say the cameras are 'totally over the top' and are demanding they be taken down. Father-of-two Dan Austin, 40, said: 'It's ridiculous to have so many cameras and totally unnecessary. All parents want their children to be safe at school but this is over the top. It's like sending your kids to a high security prison. 'I don't like the idea that children are being monitored so closely - it instills a dangerous lesson that no one is trustworthy.'

8 February 2011, Alan Travis, guardian.co.uk

The most draconian aspects of the current control order regime - the lengthy curfews and forced relocation of terror suspects - should be axed now and not extended for a further nine months, the government's official overseer of its counter-terrorism review has said. MPs and peers are to be asked in the next few weeks to extend the existing control order powers before they lapse on 10 March while the coalition government hammers out the detail of its proposed alternative terror prevention and investigation measures.

8 February 2011, Paul Lewis and Matthew Taylor, guardian.co.uk

The multinational security company hired by the government to deport refused asylum seekers was warned repeatedly by its own staff that potentially lethal force was being used against deportees, an investigation by the Guardian can reveal. Details of how some G4S guards developed a dangerous technique for restraining deportees by bending them in aircraft seats is disclosed in official testimony drawn up by four whistle-blowers from the company. Their evidence was secretly submitted to the home affairs select committee in the aftermath of the death of Jimmy Mubenga, an Angolan man who died while being forcibly restrained on a flight from Heathrow in October.

7 Feb 2011, Telegraph

The Department of Health wants companies to formally promote public health messages around alcohol consumption, drug use, fitness levels and eating habits. Under the proposals companies signing a “pledge” will have to self-report each year, setting out what they have achieved. The initiative called the Public Health Responsibility Deal is designed as an alternative to regulation as is part of a wider Whitehall plan to encourage voluntarily changes in public behaviour around health and wellbeing, the environment, paying taxes and philanthropy. The Department is working with David Cameron’s Behavioural Insight Team, which is advised by Richard Thaler, a Chicago professor who is recognised as popularising “nudge” theory. Nudge is based on libertarian paternalism and the idea that governments can design environments that make it easier for people to choose what is best for themselves and society. Nick Clegg has said: “The challenge is to find ways to encourage people to act in their own and in society’s long-term interest, while respecting individual freedom.”

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Police chiefs' body faces rebellion

7 February 2011, Vikram Dodd, guardian.co.uk

The body representing Britain's chief police officers is facing a rebellion from police authorities, the Guardian has learned. Up to 13 of the 43 police authorities in England and Wales will, for the first time this year, refuse to pay money to the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), according to sources on both sides, because they accuse the body of lacking accountability and remaining too large while the rest of the police service is undergoing cuts.

7 February 2011, Press Association, guardian.co.uk

Undercover policing operations should be authorised in advance by a judge, the head of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) said today. Speaking at a policing seminar held by the human rights group Liberty in central London, he said: "The current system of retrospective inspection is, in my judgment, no longer sufficient to secure the confidence of right thinking people that such interference with citizens' rights – with its foreseeable collateral intrusion on many – is appropriate.

7 Feb 2011, By Ian Dunt, Politics.co.uk

New Labour's controversial Asbo programme is being replaced by a 'criminal behaviour order', in a bid to clear up the legislation. The use of the new legal measure is likely to be met with bemusement on the opposition benches, coming just weeks after the government replaced control order curfews with an 'overnight residence requirement'.

7 February 2011, John Baron, guardian.co.uk

Leeds North West MP Greg Mulholland has called for a debate on the issue of the fingerprinting of children in schools. During Business questions recently, Mulholland said he welcomed the government's plans to stop child fingerprinting without parental consent, but questioned whether the practise should happen at all. He said "I am pleased that this government have made plans to deal with the issue of the fingerprinting of our children in schools without parental consent, but a debate would give us a chance to discuss whether children's fingerprints should be taken at all".

7 February 2011, By Keith Fairbank, This is Kent

INNOCENT people have unknowingly been spied on by council staff. Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council used anti-terror laws to track seven suspected benefits cheats, including one from the Borough Green or West Malling area. Spying is supposed to be used only as a last resort, yet no one was ever prosecuted and the residents were never told they were being followed.

7 February 2011, BBC News

A privacy campaign group has said a survey by Wiltshire Council which asks residents to share personal details is "bizarre" and "unnecessary". The £22,000 survey, delivered to 26,500 households, asks questions about issues such as sexuality and level of debt. Privacy International urged people not to fill in the form and asked the council to "rethink" the plans.

7th February 2011, by Mark Pack, LibDem Voice

Over on the Open Rights Group blog, Jason Kitcat has recounted the recent meeting hosted by the Cabinet Office about the government’s plans to improve data sharing across the public sector in order to improve electoral registration, particularly as we shift to individual registration. These plans could range from the helpful (such as giving people the option when, say, telling the TV Licensing Authority that they have moved also to have the information sent to update their electoral register entry) through to the very different (such as linking up tax records with electoral registration information without any notification or opting-in).

Jan 30 2011, By Jason Kitcat, Open Rights Group

On Monday 24th January I attended a Cabinet Office event to discuss the implications of the government's accelerated move to individual voter registration. ORG's interest in this area stems from the possible privacy implications of changes to voter registers, and also the chance that modernisations are the first step to introducing online forms of voting, which we would oppose. Tied into much of these changes is the use of data matching. Indeed how data matching is being used already and will be used even more was a common theme throughout the event.

7 February 2011, Kenneth Roy, Our Kingdom

In this two-part exposé, Kenneth Roy, editor of the Scottish Review, reveals the true nature of the long-awaited 'privacy principles' and the back-door introduction of a compulsory ID scheme for Scotland. In both cases, it is the liberties of children that are first on the line. In addition to the intrinsic importance of what happens in Scotland, there are two reasons why everyone across the UK should be alert to warnings of this kind. OurKingdom and openDemocracy played a big role in the 2009 Convention on Modern Liberty. This was a"wake up call" about the dangers of the database state. The evidence it brought together shows that there is a driving state-culture pushing for the penetration of information on citizens and central control of that information, while people are far too complacent and trusting about what this process is, which is being developed with minimal publicity...

7 February 2011, Stephen Ibbitson, Big Brother Watch

Householders in Wales could be in for a shock if new rules proposed for home extensions by the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) come into being. Despite being trumpeted as giving "householders greater freedom to extend their properties without needing to apply for planning permission", the new rules would exclude even some very simple little single storey rear extensions, along with most loft conversions, now currently allowed. The WAG is proposing amendments to householders’ permitted development rights---planning permission you've already got ---granted directly by Parliament itself. Most ordinary houses in Wales have had these rights for over 60 years.

5 Feb 2011, By Tom Whitehead, Telegraph

An anti-paedophile vetting scheme that would have involved nine million adults will be ripped up next week in a major reworking of how background checks are conducted, The Daily Telegraph can disclose. Labour’s much criticised Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS) will no longer go ahead, with the vetting of individuals “very significantly” curtailed. The reform, to be included in the Freedom Bill published next week, aims to reverse the notion that everyone is a potential risk to children.

Read more...

Police enter – but without breaking

Feb 5 2011, by Abby Alford, Western Mail

“HELLO, this is the police. I’m in your house because you left the front door unlocked. This extract from a conversation between a police officer and a homeowner has been released by a Welsh police force as part of an unconventional attempt to highlight how burglars are taking advantage of insecure homes. But this latest tactic has raised eyebrows in some quarters. Isabella Sankey, director of policy at civil rights group Liberty, told the Western Mail that by entering homes without permission, police were breaking the public’s trust. “When crime is suspected the law rightly requires a judge’s warrant before police officers enter our homes,” she said. “Doing so without suspicion or warrant breaches trust and shows a disturbing disregard for personal privacy."

4 Feb 2011, By Christopher Williams, Telegraph

A new NHS computer system that will share the medical history of millions of patients with drug companies without proper consent is under attack from privacy experts, who say it is misleading, risky and potentially illegal.

4 Feb 2011, By Christopher Williams, Telegraph

The process of anonymisation aims to take personal data and make the subject of that data unidentifiable, but it is not always that simple. As the NHS gears up its IT upgrade, it may face privacy disasters that the web industry knows only too well.

4 Feb 2011, Telegraph

Our report today about criticism of the privacy standards of the Secondary Uses Service (SUS) - the NHS' new system for sharing medical records with researchers - is the latest of many controversies to hit the National Programme for IT.

4 February 2011, By Jonathan Brown, Independent

The Coalition is accused of watering down its promise to end the detention of child asylum seekers by setting up new centres to detain families refusing to leave the UK. The new “pre-departure accommodation facilities” will be run under a more lax system than the current imprisonment of failed asylum seekers and their offspring. But the families will still be kept in “secure” units behind high fences for up to a week, reigniting concern over the Coalition’s flagship policy of ending child detention, announced by Nick Clegg in a fanfare of publicity last year.

4 February 2011, BBC News

A police officer has admitted leaking sensitive information to her lover who then tipped off a suspect in a criminal investigation. Police constable Karen Howie, 34, who is married to another officer, has since resigned from Tayside Police. She admitted two charges of perverting the course of justice at Dundee Sheriff Court. Her co-accused, Neil Hand, 44, admitted one charge under the Data Protection Act. Both will be sentenced later. Howie also admitted breaching the Data Protection Act by accessing police computer systems to uncover details of an ongoing police investigation into a counterfeiting operation.

4 February 2011, Ian Grant, Computer Weekly

US negotiators wanted to make the Anti-counterfeiting Trade Agreement (Acta) a "freestanding agreement" to avoid scrutiny from international groupings such as the G-8 or OECD, according to diplomatic cables revealed by Wikileaks.

4 February 2011, By Angela Harrison, BBC News

New search powers being given to schools over mobile phones are more suitable for terror inquiries, human rights pressure group Liberty says. England's head teachers will be allowed to search for phones without consent in a bid to combat cyber-bullying. The Education Bill, to be debated in the Commons next week, also allows heads to delete data from the phones.

4 February 2011, by ADRIAN JENKINS, Burton Mail

A RARE glimpse has been given into the use by council staff of controversial ‘snooping’ powers. In a report to a forthcoming overview and scrutiny committee, Andrea McCaskie, the authority’s head of legal and democratic services, said only two ‘snooping’ authorisations were granted under the 2000 Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) from April to September last year. “In both cases,” she writes, “surveillance was required in order to establish whether benefit claimants had partners residing with them and whether those partners were in employment. “Officers have reported that in relation to the first authorisation, surveillance has had some success in that the subject had been seen leaving the property and heading off to work, but unfortunately adverse weather conditions had cut short the surveillance. However, other inquiries are ongoing and further surveillance may be requested at a later date.” Ms McCaskie adds: “The value of the surveillance operation for the second authorisation has been negative due to a lack of positive sightings of the subject at the target address and, therefore, the authorisation has been cancelled.”

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Data breach fears over IT sharing

4 February 2011, Staffordshire Newsletter

A GROUNDBREAKING IT resource-sharing project saving Stafford taxpayers £1 million a year will not compromise their data security, council bosses claim. In the first scheme of its type in England, Staffordshire County Council is set to share its IT functions with the NHS in a Public Sector Network (PSN). Councillors claim sharing landlines, mobiles, broadband and databases with South Staffordshire Health Informatics Service (SSHIS) will save rate-payers £1 million every year. And they have hit out at claims from IT security experts that merging public services will lead to data security breaches.

3 February 2011, by Adam Wagner, UK Human Rights blog

In a case which is fascinating both legally and morally, a judge in the Court of Protection has ruled that a 41-year-old man with a mild learning disability did not have the mental capacity to consent to sex and should be prevented by a local council from doing so. The case arose when a local council, following allegations that a mentally disabled man made sexual gestures towards children, sought a court order stating that “Alan” (a false name) did not have the mental capacity to consent to sexual relations. The council ultimately wanted Alan to be banned from having sexual relations with his former house-mate and sexual partner.

3 February 2011, Isabella Sankey, guardian.co.uk

The new "gang-related violence" injunction, brought into force this week, has a depressingly familiar whiff. A bigger, badder cousin of the discredited asbo, this measure will potentially punish the vulnerable while allowing dangerous criminals to evade prosecution.

3 February 2011, Clare Sambrook, Our Kingdom

In this morning’s Independent Andrew Grice reveals that the UK Border Agency locked up an 11-year-old girl in an immigration removal centre on Christmas Day in defiance of deputy prime minister Nick Clegg’s promise that no child would be so detained at Christmas. As recently as 10 January a Home Office press officer falsely claimed that no child had been detained at Christmas. A Freedom of Information Request drew out the truth, talk of which reached Grice. Besides making deputy prime minister Nick Clegg look a deceiver and a Grade A twit, this story betrays UK Border Agency incompetence and contempt for democratic process, proving yet again that it is not fit to be entrusted with children’s care.

3 February 2011, By Andrew Grice, Independent

The UK Border Agency (UKBA) has apologised for holding an 11-year-old girl in an immigration removal centre on Christmas Day in defiance of a pledge by the Coalition Government to end such cases. The child was detained overnight with her mother and adult sister at Tinsley House near Gatwick Airport after being refused admission to Britain. They were deported on Boxing Day. The incident, disclosed to The Independent, has infuriated ministers because they had promised to end child detention for immigration purposes by Christmas.

3 Feb 2011, Rob Parsons and Justin Davenport, This is London

When a knife-wielding drunk hijacked a train on the Docklands Light Railway, passenger Tariq Elmenstirly leapt into action. The 23-year-old student jumped on top of the attacker and pinned him down until police could get there. Armed officers burst into the carriage, fearing someone had been stabbed and immediately Tasered the suspect, knifeman Mohammed Hussain. There was just one problem, they had zapped the hero. Today, as Hussain faced jail for the attack, Mr Elmenstirly told of his anger that he had not received any thanks from police for his actions - or even an apology from the officer who stunned him with the Taser.

February 3 2011, by Sunny Hundal, Liberal Conspiracy

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Greater Manchester Police use number plate spy cameras 250 times in just one week

February 3 2011, Dan Thompson, Manchester Evening News

Police used spy cameras on Greater Manchester drivers in almost 250 sites in just one week. New figures show GMP use automatic number plate recognition more than almost any other force in the country. The cameras have been blasted by civil rights group Liberty as ‘mass surveillance’ on innocent motorists.

3 February 11, Tony Collins, Computerworld UK

Researchers from Oxford University say that patients are not being adequately informed about possible secondary uses of their medical data for research and are "misled about the level of anonymisation of their data and the likelihood of re-identification". The criticism is in a paper "The limits of anonymisation in NHS data systems" which was published yesterday by the British Medical Journal. The paper brings to the fore arguments over whether a patient's health data can remain confidential in an era of data collection and sharing, and what the paper calls the "increasing commercialisation of patient data".

3 February 2011, BBC News

Councils in Kent and East Sussex have been accused of carrying out unjustified Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks for job applicants. Ex-offenders charities said the checks for posts such as harbour assistants and leisure centre catering assistants could stop people getting jobs. Tim Linehan, of crime reduction charity Nacro, said: "For some people it is devastating." He said some of Nacro's clients had been refused jobs because of offences committed 30 years ago which came up on CRB checks. "They undermine people's hopes, their aspirations and their desire to contribute to society," he said.

3 February 2011, Guardian Professional

The Home Office has failed to meet its target of tracking 95% of all passenger and crew journeys into and out of the UK by December 2010. In a parliamentary written answer published on 1 February, Home Office minister Baroness Neville-Jones said the figure will not exceed 90% until 2014, and that only 55% of inbound and 60% of outbound passenger movements from the UK are currently being processed through e-Borders.

February 2 2011, Manchester Evening News

A dad was quizzed by armed cops after refusing to use a ‘naked scanner’ at Manchester airport. Steven Bradshaw, 53, was pulled to one side when he told a security guard the controversial machine was ‘Big Brother technology’ and ‘invasive’. Mr Bradshaw, from Poynton, missed his flight to Gatwick and connection to Madeira after declining the scan and was forced to undergo a criminal records check while two armed policeman stood guard.

Feb 2 2011, Mark Mcgivern, Daily Record

Confidential police videos of a little girl telling officers about alleged violent child abuse have been found at a bus station. Last night, the shocking breach of privacy over the six-year-old's harrowing interview was the subject of an urgent inquiry. Senior Strathclyde Police officers admitted they were unsure if the tapes - describing an alleged drunken assault by the girl's father on her threeyear-old brother - had been lost or stolen. But they admitted the force were "at serious fault". The family were contacted yesterday and offered an unreserved apology for the breach of privacy.

2 February 2011, Randeep Ramesh and Sarah Bosely, guardian.co.uk

Family doctors will be entitled to share in a £150m bonus pot for identifying problems in adults and children that would reduce the risk of depression and other mental health problems, the government has announced. By 2013 the government says 15% of the £1bn financial incentives that hold family doctors to "account for high-quality care" will be focused on prevention, especially in mental health. In a paper accompanying the strategy released yesterday the government says that implementing seven mental health early intervention programmes – ranging from dealing with children with "conduct disorders" to talking therapies to new debt advice schemes – would cost £2.55bn but create £4.54bn in savings and another £4.85bn in benefits over a 26-year period.

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PSNI criticised over DNA database

2 February 2011, Belfast Telegraph

Police chiefs have been accused of failing to engage with the Policing Board on the controversial policy of retaining DNA of innocent people.

2 Feb 2011, Miranda Bryant, This is London

A FLORIST was fined £100 for obstructing the pavement after including a sheep and a goat in a fund-raising event outside her shop. Elaine Partleton, 57, agreed to keep the animals from Kingston City Farm outside The Flower Lady in Herne Hill to help raise £200 for cancer patients at Kingston Hospital. Ms Partleton said: "Kingston City Farm asked me if I would like to have Amy the sheep and a young goat. Unfortunately I didn't tell the council that I was doing it. First of all the dog warden turned up and said the animals needed to be checked for foot and mouth." Then the council Street Care team turned up and said she would be given a £100 fine. Lambeth council said it had since agreed to reduce the fine to £90.

2 February 2011, Polly Curtis, guardian.co.uk

The coalition government has appointed the arch-Blairite moderniser Julian Le Grand to head a taskforce promoting the mutualisation of public services – a key plank of its "big society" plans. Le Grand, who worked in No 10's policy unit under Blair between 2003 and 2005, is credited with introducing Labour's quasi-market reforms and devising its "baby bond" child trust funds. He will head the new group, which is backed by David Cameron, to drive reform at the centre of government and support mutuals around the country. Francis Maude, the cabinet office minister, announced the appointment today, alongside eight so-called pathfinder projects. "In coalition, you have commitment; in big parts of the Labour party there is support for this approach as well, though it never gathered much momentum in the Blair years. I'm delighted we're able to give it a real push," he told the Guardian.

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Benefit fraud: spies in the welfare war

1 February 2011, Amelia Gentleman, The Guardian

At 6.30am, the housing estates that fringe Tunbridge Wells are silent, the roads empty. Colin Stevens drives into a cul-de-sac, searching for house number 18. There's a light on downstairs, and two cars outside. He notes the number plates, does a U-turn, parks the car around the corner and waits. "When you are doing surveillance, you have to remain covert," he says. He has pulled in by a hedge, a good, inconspicuous position, he says, because it is not on someone else's doorstep. The sky is still purple-black, and passers-by would have to strain to see the two benefit fraud investigators sitting in the front of the car.

February 1 2011, Liz Perkins, This South Wales

A NEATH man says he believes he is "lucky to be alive" after alleging police officers fired a Taser stun gun at his head. Dad-of-four Jeff Evans, of Briton Ferry, made the complaint following his arrest by South Wales Police on August 15, 2009. The 45-year-old's claims are being independently investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC). Mr Evans said: "The police burst in and shot me with a Taser gun when I was standing in my boxer shorts in the kitchen. "They shot me in the face and I had 50,000 volts go through my brain."Mr Evans claimed he was also shot in the chest, thigh and elbow. "I was hit in the face with a baton and I needed 10-12 stitches in my head," Mr Evans added. "I had black eyes, a split lip, swollen cheek bones and a tooth was knocked out." He claimed he lost a total of three pints of blood and that a Taser bar had to be removed from his head.

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The messy truth of police CS spray use

1 February 2011, Bibi van der Zee, guardian.co.uk

The use of CS spray on protesters confirms police-watchers' fears – panicked police will use weapons inappropriately.

1 February 2011, Sade Laja, Guardian Professional

Three nurses who were banned from nursing under the government's vetting and barring scheme plan to sue for loss of earnings. The three nurses, two of whom lost their jobs while the other was moved to an administrative role as a result of accepting police cautions, plan to lodge a case against the Home Office at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The move comes after a High Court judge ruled in November that their treatment had been unlawful due to the automatic barring element of the scheme. Mr Justice Wyn Williams said at the time that the civil rights of the nurses had not been upheld as they were not given the opportunity, before being automatically barred, to give their side of the story.

1st February 2011, By James Slack, Daily Mail

Police in Britain are being forced to arrest more criminals on behalf of other EU countries than any other nation. Under the hugely controversial European Arrest Warrant, officers had to chase down 4,100 people accused of committing even very minor crimes last year.

February 1 2011, Mark Ballard, Computer Weekly

Why would the DWP have supported the hair-brained Home Office plan to commandeer its computer assets for the Identity Card Scheme? Vanity, of course. You can see what the DWP thought of the plan by reading the restricted policy document that comprised its approval, Use of the Customer Information System as a shared, cross-Government asset.

1 February 2011, BBC News

The UK government has announced that it is to look again at plans to block websites that infringe copyright. The controversial measures formed part of its crackdown on net pirates, outlined in the Digital Economy Act (DEA). The decision to review it follows a raft of complaints about the workablility of the legislation.

31 Jan 2011, Cision Wire

RoadPilot Ltd is warning motorists to take extra care when driving into London via the A13 from today, following the introduction of a sophisticated new average speed camera network. It is far more sophisticated than previous speed camera systems in that it can monitor a vehicle’s speed across an entire network of roads, including all entry and exit points, rather than just between two cameras. James Flynn OBE, CEO of RoadPilot, comments: “This new system marks a significant step in speed monitoring, as it means that motorists must scrutinise their speed across a far bigger area. “The technology also opens up further possibilities for greater speed enforcement. If this system proves successful, it could be extended or rolled out to other locations, all of which can be linked together. Taken to the extreme, the entire UK road network could, in theory, be linked up under one average speed monitoring system – meaning Big Brother could always be watching you!”

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Innocent DNA retention to be challenged

31 Jan 2011, By Tom Whitehead, Telegraph

Police chiefs could be forced to clear the DNA database of innocent people ahead of any change in the law under a legal challenge that begins today. The Coalition Government has pledged to dramatically reduce the time period that police can retain samples of people who were not charged or convicted of offences. It follows a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in 2008 that a blanket policy of retaining such profiles indefinitely was illegal. However, no new laws have yet been introduced and the Supreme Court will today hear a test case that such samples should be deleted now. If the country's top court agrees it could result in police forces having to remove the samples immediately regardless of when new legislation is introduced. Up to one million samples on the national database believed to belong to individuals who were never charged or convicted with an offence. A report last year suggested at least one in four DNA profiles being collected by the police is from an innocent person.

31 January 11, Tony Collins, Computerworld UK

Nurses surveyed by the Royal College of Nursing say that increased sharing of information across multiple care providers brings a “risk of increased problems with information security”. The RCN says in its paper that “fewer than half (49%) of the nursing staff surveyed in the RCN e-Health survey thought that electronic patient records are more secure than paper-based ones”. The Royal College says that “this concern should be addressed by Government”. The Royal College of Psychiatrists, in its response to the consultation, is also concerned about the security of electronic records. It says the public is justifiably concerned that insurance and finance companies could access e-records.

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Identity card plan ignored fatal flaws

31 January 2011, Mark Ballard, Computer Weekly

Ministers and civil servants swept fundamental problems with the ID card database blueprint under the carpet and approved a development plan that would prove so unfeasible it had to be torn up after government IT experts had worked on it for three years, Computer Weekly has learned.

31 January 2011, Mark Ballard, Computer Weekly

The ID scheme drew criticism after a leak of Home Office e-mails exposed concerns over feasibility. Ministers involved with the ID card system were told the plan was feasible, but recently released documents reveal key issues that were never addressed.

30 Jan 2011, David Harrison, Telegraph

Nurses who were banned from working under a controversial vetting scheme are to launch a major test case against the Government in the European Court. The move will embarrass ministers and could lead to hundreds more workers taking legal action, at a cost of millions of pounds to the public purse. The three nurses bringing the case all lost their jobs following minor offences which were not deemed serious enough to go to court, but which resulted in them being handed police cautions. One of the nurses broke the law by leaving her 11-year-old son at home alone while she went shopping. Another was cautioned because while he was at work, his wife left the couple's children alone for a short period. The third kissed a colleague without permission.

30th January 2011, By Steve Doughty, Daily Mail

An immigration officer tried to rid himself of his wife by adding her name to a list of terrorist suspects. He used his access to security databases to include his wife on a watch list of people banned from boarding flights into Britain because their presence in the country is 'not conducive to the public good'. As a result the woman was unable for three years to return from Pakistan after travelling to the county to visit family. The tampering went undetected until the immigration officer was selected for promotion and his wife name was found on the suspects' list during a vetting inquiry.

30th January 2011, By Eileen Fairweather, Daily Mail

Last week I had a strange experience - I was treated as a foreigner in my own country. I was ordered to submit my passport to an organisation I believe has no ethical right to police my identity. Yet I learned that it does have the right, thanks to a Labour initiative spinelessly reinforced by the Coalition. So far it has escaped publicity but it represents a sea change in British identity and rights - or lack of them. Supposedly we must now counter racism by treating every Briton as an alien and potential fraudster until proven otherwise.

29 January 2011, David Edgar, Our Kingdom

The Liberal Democrats' compromise on control orders which means that people are still to be curfewed and tagged without charge is significant of itself. But it is also important for what it indicates about the political future of the coalition.

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Section 44: A wasted opportunity

28 Jan 2011, Olivier Laurent, British Journal of Photography

A year after the European Court of Human Rights found Britain's stop-and-search powers to be illegal, and six months after the Home Office ordered a review of the controversial anti-terrorism laws, the proposals unveiled this week fall short of photographers' expectation.

28th January 2011, By Jason Groves, Daily Mail

Businesses are set to be barred from collecting secret information on people’s use of the internet in a radical tightening of data privacy rules. Ministers have started a review amid fears that the laws have been overtaken by technology developments in the past decade. It will lead to restrictions on the widespread practice of using people’s internet habits to draw up individual profiles in order to target advertising at them, sources say. The European Commission warned last year that it would take the UK to court unless it tightened up the law. It said such profiling did not appear to be covered by the Data Protection Act. The review is also expected to strengthen people’s rights to withdraw consent from having their personal data used. People could also be given the right to have data permanently deleted.

27th January 2011, By John Leyden • The Register

Comms data retention is ineffective for the prosecution of serious crime, according to a study of German police statistics by local privacy activists.

27 January 2011, Kable

The Department for Work and Pensions has published a tender worth up to £2m for the supply of biographical data to identity online benefit claimants. As part of its fraud and error strategy, the DWP has a growing requirement to verify client information and provide a client risk profile. It said that access to data held by third parties is required to substantiate information supplied by its clients either in real time or near real time across a number of benefits.

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NHS security campaign launched

27 January 2011, BBC News

The Health Facilities Scotland campaign was launched at Edinburgh's Western General Hospital, which has one of the UK's most advanced security systems. The £350,000 facility uses pioneering facial recognition technology, with footage fed from 127 high definition cameras positioned around the site.

27th January 2011, By Daily Mail Reporter

Airport officials ordered a holidaymaker carrying a toy soldier onto a plane to remove its three-inch gun - because it was a safety threat. Ken Lloyd was stunned when he was told he could not go on the plane with the nine-inch model soldier because it was carrying a 'firearm'.

27 Jan 2011, Graeme Paton, Telegraph

School inspectors will be banned from snooping in pupils’ lunchboxes under new plans to overhaul the education watchdog. Proposed legislation published on Thursday will strip Ofsted of powers to inspect “peripheral” issues such as school food, pupil wellbeing and community cohesion to concentrate on key areas of school performance.

January 27 2011, By Robert Ashton, BBC News

The Government has stalled on its promises to remove the red tape around live music after Minister for Tourism and Heritage John Penrose suggested a small venue exception can only be pushed through if the DCMS gets the support of ministerial colleagues. Penrose, whose brief also includes licensing, has said that if he goes down the route of deregulation – UK Music, the Musicians’ Union and others are advocating an exception from the Licensing Act for venues to put on gigs for 100 people or more – then he will be required to alert his colleagues in at least two other Government departments. The move comes as the Lord Clement-Jones Live Music Bill gets a date for its second reading in the House of Lords.

26th January 2011, Steve Hackwell » Basildon Echo

BUS inspectors, traffic wardens and shopping centre security guards have all been granted “police powers” under controversial legislation. A Freedom of Information request has revealed 403 people in Essex are part of the controversial Community Safety Accreditation Scheme. The law gives them the power to fine people for dog fouling and littering, stop vehicles for testing and seize alcohol and tobacco from the under-aged. Tony Rayner, chairman of the county’s Police Federation, criticised the scheme for undermining police officers. He said: “It is a gimmick, foisted upon us by the last government. It is part of what they were trying to do in putting more uniforms on the street. “It is not to denigrate those who have received it, but there is no way they should be given police powers. We have a tradition of only vesting police powers in our police. The more we dilute that, the more it confuses the public and takes away from their authority.” The scheme was introduced by Tony Blair’s government as part of its 2002 Police Reform Act. Individuals who have been granted the powers are known as “accredited persons”.

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Road camera ‘spy’ fear

Jan 26 2011, The Sheffield Star

DATA on millions of vehicle movements, recorded by 100 automatic number plate recognition cameras on Sheffield’s roads, is to be discussed by the council’s cabinet today amid concern about the impact on civil liberties and drivers’ privacy. A report to a meeting of Sheffield Council’s cabinet this afternoon asks members to decide on a policy for how the information, collected from more than 100 locations on the city’s road network, should be used in the future. It follows concern by the Government Information Commissioner’s Office that retention of full data from the cameras - which record vehicle registration numbers and images of vehicles and their occupants - could be a breach of the Data Protection Act.

25 January 2011, UNHCR

Last year, Clare Sambrook won two of Britain's top investigative journalism awards for a series of stories highlighting the plight of child asylum-seekers in the United Kingdom. Her journalism is rooted in End Child Detention Now, an unfunded citizens' campaign launched in October 2009 to end child detention by the UK immigration authorities. The coalition government has pledged to end child detention by May this year. Sambrook discussed her media campaign in an e-mail exchange with UNHCR External Relations Associate Laura Padoan

25 Jan 2011, By Tom Whitehead, Telegraph

Private firms should take over the running of police custody suites and control rooms to save money, the policing minister said yesterday. Nick Herbert said there should be "no ideological barrier" to companies or other individuals carry out some of the duties of the police.

24 January 2011, Martin Slack, Yorkshire Post

CONTROVERSIAL weapons which allow police officers to disable potential offenders with a bolt of high-voltage electricity were deployed 23 times across South Yorkshire last year, new figures reveal. The figures are a significant increase on previous years, with the stun guns only used on 13 occasions between 2004 and 2009. During that five-year period there were just 24 occasions where the weapon was aimed at potential targets.

26.01.11, Home Office

These documents follow the review of counter-terrorism and security powers. The Home Secretary announced the outcome of the review to Parliament on 26 January 2010.

A report by Lord Macdonald of River Glaven QC (PDF file - 538kb)

Review findings and recommendations (PDF file - 428kb)

26 January 2011, Nigel Morris, Independent

The foreman of the jury that cleared four men of plotting to release ricin on Britain's streets called last night for a complete overhaul of counter-terror legislation. As ministers prepare to set out plans today to replace control orders, Laurence Archer warned that many anti-terror laws were a "knee jerk reaction to 9/11" and a "sledgehammer to crack a nut". Mr Archer had no interest in politics before the seven-month trial which ended with four Algerian men being cleared of plotting to make deadly poisons and explosives. But the experience – particularly the claim that much of the evidence against them was obtained through torture – has turned him into a campaigner for scaling back anti-terror legislation.

25th January 2011, By James Slack, Daily Mail

Town halls will be banned from spying on the public over ‘bin crimes’ and school catchment area rules. In a victory for the Daily Mail, Home Secretary Theresa May will say that only offences which carry a jail term should be subject to the intrusive surveillance powers. Even then, councils must first seek the formal approval of a magistrate before they are allowed to make use of the controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. It will end the scandal of councils using Big Brother ‘direct surveillance’ tactics against people suspected of the most minor misdemeanours. Spying for dog fouling, leaving out the rubbish on the wrong day and other offences which carry only a fine will no longer be allowed.

January 25th 2011, Brendan O'Neill, Telegraph

One key principle of civilised life as we know it has been overlooked in the sacking of the Sky football presenter Andy Gray: namely that we should never be punished for our private thoughts or private speech. It’s legitimate for an organisation to slap an employee’s wrists, possibly even sack him, if he says something in public, on the record, that sullies the reputation of said organisation. But to humiliate a man for saying something to a colleague in what he believed was complete privacy? That way tyranny lies.

January 25 2011, Mark Reed blogspot

Text Of Letter sent to Police : I write in reference to a Stop And Search conducted upon myself after taking a photograph of the International Station in foggy conditions in the presence of my family. This Stop and Search was conducted on invalid grounds, and I therefore write to you to formally complain over an illegal Stop and Search conducted with no legal justification.

25 January 2011, Ian Cobain, guardian.co.uk

Proposals by MI5 and MI6 to extend courtroom secrecy to civil trials would unfairly restrict the right of the media to act as the "eyes and ears" of the public, the supreme court heard today. The media's role is of particular importance in cases where the two agencies are facing allegations of complicity in torture, Lord Lester QC, representing the Guardian, the Times and the BBC told the court.

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Patchy SCR roll out nears 10 per cent

25 January 2011, Fiona Barr, E-Health Insider

The NHS in England has created Summary Care Records for 8.5% of the population with the leading region, NHS North East, creating SCRs for one in six.

January 25 2011, AllGov.com

Until now, police could only turn to drones like the bird-sized Wasp in emergency situations because of the required approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which controls all U.S. airspace. The FAA, however, is expected to formulate new rules within two years that would allow police to routinely fly small, unarmed drones up to 400 feet above the ground, making them virtually invisible to unsuspecting people on the ground.

25 January 2011, Speech by Philip Pullman, co-published by Our Kingdom

And who are these volunteers? Who are these people whose lives are so empty, whose time spreads out in front of them like the limitless steppes of central Asia, who have no families to look after, no jobs to do, no responsibilities of any sort, and yet are so wealthy that they can commit hours of their time every week to working for nothing? ... This is the Big Society, you see. It must be big, to contain so many volunteers. But there’s a prize being dangled in front of these imaginary volunteers. People who want to save their library, we’re told, are going to be “allowed to bid” for some money from a central pot. We must sit up and beg for it, like little dogs, and wag our tails when we get a bit.

25th January 2011, James Slack, Daily Mail

Town hall bosses are compiling secret ‘Big Brother’ databases on the appearance of school children’s parents. Education officials say they are keeping the sensitive information in case they ever want to identify a parent for legal action. Forms are being given to staff asking them to comment on height, hair, and build, which involves assumptions on whether a parent should be considered overweight or untidy. Last night James Welch, legal director of human rights campaign group Liberty, said: ‘Councils should not be making secret notes about innocent parents. What on earth has it got to do with getting kids to school?’ The form is described as a ‘parent identification form’. A whistleblower said it was being circulated by the ‘school attendance improvement service’ at Leicestershire County Council. It has been handed out to truancy officers – who are under instruction to fill it out whenever they come across any parent.

25th January 2011, Daily Mail

A defiant householder has been ordered to pay £240 - for putting his recycling sacks out every week instead of every fortnight. Leslie Brooks, 48, was prosecuted by Basildon Council in Essex, after he ignored warnings about the fortnightly pink sack collections. It's the council's first such prosecution, and has been slammed by an action group as 'Orwellian'. He was fined £75, ordered to pay costs of £150 and a victim surcharge of £15 after being found guilty in his absence at Basildon Magistrates' Court of an offence under the Environmental Protection Act 1990. Grant Shapps, local government minister in the coalition Government, said there was 'something wrong' when the law came 'crushing down' on people who 'simply put out their rubbish'. He said the council was using 'bin police' powers introduced by the previous Labour government and said the coalition would 'stand up' for the 'civil liberties of law-abiding citizens'.

January 25 2011, Big Brother Watch

Unless we sweep away this authoritarian policy, the radicalisation of Muslims will continue

25 January 2011, BBC News

A school in Staffordshire has been criticised for using on-site security cameras to film evidence of its pupils smoking. Landau Forte Academy in Tamworth said the footage was used to fine pupils £10 for breaking its school rules. CCTV advisory group Camerawatch said the practice was potentially unfair. It said the data protection code of practice states that surveillance cameras must clearly warn the public if they are employed for non-security use.

25 January 11, Leo King, Computerworld UK

Hospitals are increasingly sceptical of the benefits of new IT systems, following continued turmoil in the National Programme for IT, according to a strong warning from the NHS Confederation.

24 January 2011, Dominic Casciani and Steve Swann, BBC News

For the past five years, the home secretary has signed orders to restrict the freedoms of almost 50 men suspected of involvement in terrorism. But what do we actually know about the men themselves?

23 January 2011, Richard Norton-Taylor, guardian.co.uk

MI5 and MI6 will argue in a test case before the supreme court tomorrow that in future no intelligence gathered abroad, even if initially obtained through torture, should ever be disclosed in a British court. Last year an appeal court dismissed what it described as an attempt to undermine a fundamental principle of common law: that a litigant must see and hear the evidence used against him or her. Now the security and intelligence agencies are challenging that ruling in an unprecedented case. The Guardian, the Times, the BBC, and the human rights groups Liberty and Justice will argue before the country's most senior judges that if the agencies get their way, the right to a fair trial will be eroded, while public confidence in decisions taken by the courts will be diminished.

21 January 2011, Max Rowlands, Statewatch

Within weeks of its formation in May 2010, the coalition government announced with much fanfare its intention “to restore the rights of individuals in the face of encroaching state power.” An easy victory over Labour’s politically bankrupt National Identity Scheme followed, but since then the government’s approach has been characterised by caution and pragmatism rather than an unerring commitment to liberty.

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Anger as merger of 'spy cop' squads lumps protestors in with terrorists

23rd January 2011, By David Rose, Daily Mail

Police operations aimed at peaceful activists are to be merged with counter-terrorism in the wake of the undercover ‘spy cop’ scandal. In a radical shake-up, the units that deal with so-called ‘domestic extremism’ are to be absorbed into Scotland Yard’s Counter Terrorism Command – including the National Public Order Intelligence Unit, of which Mark Kennedy and other recently exposed undercover officers were members. The National Domestic Extremism Team and the National Extremism Tactical Co-ordination Unit will also come under the counter-terrorism umbrella, along with the National Community Tension Team, which monitors cohesion in inner cities.

23 January 2011, Diane Taylor and Owen Bowcott, guardian.co.uk

A Congolese asylum seeker claims he struggled to breathe when security staff restrained him at a Heathrow boarding gate, and feared he was "going to die". Bienvenue Mbombo, 38, alleged that UK Border Agency escorts put a knee on his chest and sat on him as he resisted efforts to deport him on a Kenya Airways flight to Nairobi this month. The UKBA claimed Mbombo had become violent. His complaint emerged as the charity Medical Justice, which monitors the welfare of those in immigration detention, said it had records of 11 people being injured in forced removals since the death of Jimmy Mubenga last October.

January 23 2011, Terri Dowty, Liberal England

Before the election, both the Liberals and the Conservatives signalled their disapproval of the way in which so many intrusive measures had been introduced via regulations - and sometimes with no scrutiny whatsoever. In their IT manifesto, the Conservatives went so far as to promise that no new database would ever be constructed without primary legislation. From that statement, one could reasonably assume that they deplored sweeping data-gathering powers being granted to ministers, so we felt optimistic that the powers already in existence would be revoked. That simply isn’t happening and, so far, we haven’t been able to get any assurances that it will. Thus, s12 Children Act 2004, which empowers the Secretary of State to create children’s databases via regulations, remains in force and construction of Contactpoint’s nasty little sister, the eCAF database, continues. This is to hold and share the personal profile, or CAF, of every child seeking council services – around 4m children a year.

22 January 2011, Independent

The recent UK demonstrations by students against the huge increase in university fees has provided the latest example of media coverage of such events: they are often presented as being motivated by violence which endangers the fabric of our society. The police's stance is very simple – they claim that they are there to protect demonstrations, but that inevitably violence occurs. But my own experience suggests that this is a gross oversimplification.

21 January 2011, Kable

The Information Commissioner's Office has reprimanded NHS Blood and Transplant for wrongly recording organ donation preferences over a decade. The ICO said that in March 2010 NHSBT, which manages the Organ Donation Register (ODR), found irregularities between donation preferences stated on Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) application forms and the data recorded on the register. Further investigation showed that there was an ODR software error dating back to 1999, which affected the recording of specific organ preferences from the DVLA. Once the error was discovered, NHSBT halted use of DVLA data files and an independent investigation was commissioned by NHSBT, carried out by Professor Sir Gordon Duff. It informed the ICO and the public in April 2010.

21 January 2011, Polly Curtis, guardian.co.uk

The head of the civil service has ordered an inquiry into the government's localism reforms amid growing concerns that its "big society" plans risk eroding the basic democratic principles of transparency and ministerial accountability, the Guardian has learned. There are fears by those at the top of Whitehall that parliament's fundamental right to hold the government to account for its actions is being tested by the scale of the coalition's ambitions to devolve power from the centre to local communities and outsource services to charities and the private sector. The information commissioner, Christopher Graham, has warned separately that the government is risking eroding the accountability of the state as services are outsourced under the big society reforms, because everything from children's services to doctors' practices could end up outside the scope of the Freedom of Information Act.

21 January 2011, Fitwatch

New revelations published in an excellent article in today’s Schnews show police and/or government employees actively disrupting activist websites, posting comments designed to “sow mistrust, demoralise movements and to incite violence and illegality”. We understand well over one hundred posts have been made to Indymedia UK, the activists open publishing news website, made by anonymous posters hiding behind the ‘303 gateway’ - part of the Government Secure Intranet (GSI). The GSI was set up to provide secure communications between government bodies, but appears also to be used to hide the origin of defamatory, misleading and malicious comments made on a number of activist websites.

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SCOTLAND’S BACK-DOOR ID CARD BATTLE

20th January 2011, NO2ID Newsletter

Among the most dedicated opponents of the Blair government’s Identity Cards Act were the SNP. However, as the government of Scotland they seem to have other ideas, as Geraint Bevan, coordinator of NO2ID Scotland, explains: UK ID cards are no longer valid, but National Entitlement Cards (ID cards by another name) continue to be issued in Scotland. These multi-purpose cards, which masquerade under a wide range of guises including concessionary travel and YoungScot cards, are issued by local authorities and provide access to various services. Each card is linked to a “Citizens Account” unless card-holders explicitly reject data-sharing on the application form. Citizens Accounts are records of personal information stored on a network of databases operated by Scotland’s 32 local authorities.

19 January 2011, Josie Appleton, Spiked

As in 1936, a battle is playing out in Spain that resounds beyond her borders. On one side are the government and health establishment, who on 2 January introduced one of the strictest smoking bans in Europe, prohibiting smoking not only in enclosed public spaces but also in the vicinity of schools, hospitals and in children’s playgrounds. On the other side are furious bar owners who are ignoring or evading the law, with some stepping forward in outright rebellion and posting ‘you can smoke here’ signs or calling public demonstrations. In this battle it is crystal clear what is at stake in smoking bans, and what the different sides represent. This is not a conflict between smokers and non-smokers, but between those who are for the bureaucratic regulation of social life and those who are for tolerance and liberty.

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Trader hits out at CRB check rule

Jan 21 2011, Driffield Today

A caterer who was forced to undergo a CRB security check by East Riding Council – for running a roadside food trailer. Paul St. Clair, who opened Le Petit Café five years ago, was shocked when he was told by County Hall officials that he must undergo the stringent checks, usually required for those working with children or the elderly. It is understood that under new policy, street traders are being forced to pay for the CRB check and is implemented by an executive agency of the Home Office to safeguard the vulnerable.

21 January 2011, OUT-LAW News

Northern Ireland's High Court of Justice has ruled that police retention of a 14 year old boy's DNA was not illegal, despite a European Court of Human Rights ruling that the blanket data retention policy conflicts with human rights law. The Court said that it could not follow the ruling from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) because an earlier ruling by the House of Lords conflicted with it. Mr Justice McLoskey said in the ruling that this verdict was necessary even though it was the Northern Irish Court's view that the retention was in conflict with human rights law. "By virtue of the doctrine of precedent, it is incumbent on this court to give effect to the decision of the House of Lords ... with the result that the first limb of [the boy's] challenge cannot succeed," said the ruling.

21 Jan 2011, By Graeme Paton, Telegraph

Children are being prescribed mind-altering “chemical cosh” drugs for conditions such as shyness and mild social anxiety, behaviour experts have warned. Young people are routinely being given medication to treat normal childhood conditions, it was claimed, despite fears over their long-term health. The disclosure came as it emerged that the number of eight- to 13-year-olds on drugs such as Ritalin has soared seven-fold since 1997. In many cases, pupils are being put on medication in an attempt to manage serious behaviour problems. But Dave Traxson, a senior educational psychologist who works in schools in the West Midlands, warned that children were increasingly prescribed drugs for “normal” conditions. “I feel very strongly that the time is right to challenge the growing practice of medicating our children for displaying behaviours and thought processes that until recently would have fallen within the normal range,” he said. “In my region, there has been a huge growth of children being diagnosed with bipolar disorders, and a growth in the numbers given strong drugs. “Doctors seem to be trying to shift more and more children into clinical treatment and this is very dangerous.” Speaking to the Times Educational Supplement, Mr Traxson there was growing use of drugs to treat conditions such as shyness. According to latest figures from the NHS, some 650,000 children aged eight to 13 are now on drugs such as Ritalin, which is used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

January 21 2011, Paul Kemp, This is Tamworth

A CONTROVERSIAL "no smoking" policy at a Tamworth school which involves spying on pupils using its CCTV cameras would put it in breach of the law, it was claimed this week. The privately-run Landau Forte Academy, formerly Woodhouse High School, recently announced a tough new policy to fine parents £10 if their children were caught smoking – and said it would use CCTV footage as evidence against them. But advisory service Camerawatch this week contacted the Herald and said public records showed the academy had not registered its CCTV equipment for such a use – and warned it could land the school in court to face a fine of up to half-a-million pounds for breaching the Data Protection Act.

21st January 2011, By Helen Duffett, LibDem Voice

From midnight tonight, ID cards may no longer be used to prove identity or to travel in Europe. The documents are to be scrapped by the government under the Identity Documents Act 2010. All personal information supplied during the process of applying for an identity card, including photographs and fingerprints, will be destroyed by 21 February 2011.

20th January 2011, By Joe Fay • The Register

Taxpayers will finally see some value for money out of the former goverment's ID card scheme. The cost of destroying the personal data collected under the ill-starred programme will be a mere £400,000, Home Office minister Damian Green revealed yesterday. The figure came in a commons reply to Paul Goggins MP, who'd asked what security standards would be applied in the destruction of the National Identity Register, what the arrangements were for the data destruction, and what the cost would be.

20 Jan 2011, Tom Harper, This is London

A secret database of suspects operated by Britain's elite crime-fighting unit breaks data protection and human rights laws, according to the information watchdog. The Information Commissioner today criticised the Serious Organised Crime Agency for maintaining a shadowy register of suspected fraudsters and money-launderers. An Information Commissioner's Office report suggests that an estimated one million citizens are on the database known as Elmer - and many may be innocent. It criticises the system, introduced under terror laws 10 years ago, and questions if it is "justified, necessary and proportionate". Tory peer Lord Marlesford said: "This database sounds like something used by the Stasi in communist Germany. It is in effect a secret database of suspects - none of whom know they are on it nor can they respond to the allegations. It is most un-British and most undemocratic."

20 January 2011, BBC News

Senior officers have called for armed transport police to be able to patrol the UK's railway network. British Transport Police (BTP) Chief Constable Andrew Trotter has asked the government to amend the 1968 Firearms Act to allow the move. He told ministers the terror security threat was likely to remain at the "severe" level until the 2012 Olympics. BTP said a security review was under way but it "would not be appropriate" to comment in depth on the proposals. Transport officers currently need to call in the local constabulary if an armed operation is needed.

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Police on 999 calls demand taser guns

20 January 2011, This is London

Rank-and-file police want all officers on emergency calls to be armed with a Taser. They say initial fears about the electric stun-gun have proved "totally groundless".

20 January 2011, Kable

The UK Border Agency is planning a network of booths to take foreigners' fingerprints and photos. Equipment to video record each applicant, back office ICT systems to collate and transmit enrolment data and document scanning will be delivered under the deal. A tender notice in the Official Journal of the European Union says the contract will be available to other government departments and agencies, including the Home Office and the Identity and Passport Service.

20 January 2011, Frank Furedi, Spiked

In recent years, the idea that people are too thick to know what is in their best interests has influenced and shaped policymaking on both sides of the Atlantic. In one sense, this diagnosis of intellectual poverty among the masses is simply a new expression of an old idea. Nineteenth-century social engineers regarded the targets of their work - the masses - as both irrational and easily suggestible. In the twentieth century, psychologists and advertisers argued that the world would be a better place if they could successfully manipulate the public to act in accordance with the latest ‘scientific’ insights.

20th January 2011, By Kate Loveys, Daily Mail

Teachers have been blamed for the record number of children prescribed ‘chemical cosh’ drugs such as Ritalin. There are now some 650,000 eight to 13-year-olds on the drug or its equivalents. This marks an astonishing rise, up from 92,700 in 1997 and just 9,000 in 1990, according to NHS figures. Yesterday it emerged the vast majority of the children were given the potent drug on the instruction of their teacher. Critics say staff are too quick to dish out drugs if their pupils get restless – in an effort to keep control of the classroom. And experts warned of the damage inflicted on ‘developing minds’.

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Is CCTV creeping too far?

20 January 2011, BBC News

For the last 25 years CCTV has proliferated into public spaces across the UK, but is it going too far to use cameras to give parking tickets and enforce bus lane rules?

20 January 2011, BBC News

Powers allowing terror suspects to be held for 28 days without charge will be allowed to lapse next Tuesday, returning to a 14-day limit, Home Office Minister Damian Green has said. The decision followed a review by the government, the full findings of which will be announced next Wednesday.

19 January 2011, Alan Travis, guardian.co.uk

The home secretary, Theresa May, faces fresh embarrassment over the much-delayed review of counter-terrorism powers after the Home Office confirmed that the police power to detain terror suspects for up to 28 days without charge will lapse on midnight on Monday. The power to hold a terror suspect for longer than 14 days has not been used since the summer of 2007. It now appears increasingly likely that the limit will be reduced to 14 days from midnight on Monday.

19 January 2011, Paul Lewis and Rob Evans, guardian.co.uk

Police chiefs admitted today that their infiltration of undercover police officers into protest groups had gone "badly wrong" and called for independent regulation of spying operations. Amid mounting criticism of police over the handling of the Mark Kennedy case, Jon Murphy, who speaks on the issue for the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), also insisted that undercover officers were forbidden from sleeping with activists to gather information. Three official inquiries have been launched into Kennedy's seven-year infiltration of the environmental movement after a criminal trial collapsed last week. The row has also led to Acpo being stripped of its power to run undercover police units.

19 Jan 2011, Telegraph

The Metropolitan Police were forced to admit today that one of their senior commanders gave false information to MPs when he denied having plain-clothes officers in the crowd at the G20 demonstrations in London in 2009. Giving evidence to the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee a month after the protest, in which thousands of demonstrators clashed with police, Commander Bob Broadhurst insisted there were no plain-clothes officers among the crowd, saying it would have been too dangerous to do so. But after questions arose about Mr Broadhurst's evidence in the wake of the unmasking of undercover policeman Mark Kennedy, who attended many demonstrations during seven years living as a spy among green activists, committee chairman Keith Vaz wrote to the Met's Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson. Today, the Metropolitan Police issued a statement correcting the testimony given by Mr Broadhurst on May 19, 2009.

19 January 2011, BBC News

HEALTH chiefs have apologised after the confidential records of more than 1,000 patients were stolen from a doctor's home. The personal details of 1,147 people were lost when a laptop computer was stolen from the home of a junior doctor working for Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust. The information included names, dates of birth, treatment the patients received and their hospital numbers. The employee is being disciplined and it is understood they breached regulations by transferring unencrypted patient information onto a personal computer.

19 January 2011, SA Mathieson, Kable

Figures released by the government show large variations in the use of automatic numberplate recognition cameras by police forces. Home Office minister James Brokenshire released the figures in response to a parliamentary question from Labour MP Brian Donohoe. They show that 4,225 cameras were connected by police forces in England and Wales to the National ANPR Data Centre during the week of 5-11 January, with 3,888 in England and 337 in Wales. An analysis of the figures by Kable suggests that South Yorkshire makes the greatest use by head of population of ANPR of English forces, with 247 cameras for a population of 1.3m – nearly 19 cameras for each 100,000 people.

19th January 2011, Express and Star

It was an act of kindness that brought great comfort to 90-year-old Joyce Burt. After eight days snowed in, the pensioner’s kind-hearted neighbour cleared the drifts from the footpath of her Willenhall home, enabling her to go outside. But the grandmother’s joy has now turned to anger after landlord Walsall Housing Group wrote a letter to Michael Lander telling him not to do it again — because of fears over health and safety. The 60-year-old lollipop man was then ticked off by housing staff at a meeting .

20 Jan 2011, RL News

Landlord Referencing Services has acted quickly to distance itself from what it sees as a breach of data protection by another company offering information on potential tenants. It follows a complaint to the Information Commissioner about TenantVet which allegedly was allowing access to names, addresses, dates of births, passport numbers, driving licence numbers and more on an open database.

19 January 2011, Katherine Sellgren, BBC News

Early intervention will improve the lives of vulnerable children and help break the cycle of "dysfunction and under-achievement", a report says. The government-commissioned report recommends regular assessments of all pre-school children, focusing on their social and emotional development. It also recommends numbering all year groups from birth not just from the start of primary school. Graham Allen's report also calls for a national parenting programme in the UK.

18 January 2011, Kable

The Department for Education is considering options to replace its scrapped ContactPoint system to monitor children at risk in England. The department is in the early stages of creating a national signposting service that would take a more selective approach than ContactPoint, which the government abolished soon after the general election.

18 Jan 2011, Metro

A teenager who was barred from training to be a nurse after stealing some make-up four years ago has been given a second chance, thanks to a crime reduction charity. Martha Draycott received only a police reprimand for the theft aged 13 and was also issued a warning after an argument at a youth club when she was 14. But the 17-year-old was kicked off the health and social care course she began in September when the minor incidents appeared on a Criminal Records Bureau check by Shrewsbury College. Martha said: ‘I was so upset. I had not even been convicted of an offence – it was only a warning.’

18 January 2011, Daily Mail

An Innocent restauteur was arrested in Finsbury Park, north London, in October 2007 on suspicion of identity fraud after a check on the Police National Computer database suggested he was a wanted man. Andrew Oroko, 43, was held for almost four hours and had to have the handcuffs cut off by firefighters after suffering a dislocated wrist as he was arrested. He was held at two separate police stations before officers realised they had blundered. The suspect also suffered an injured right knee in a fracas with officers, he told the High Court. Judge Richard Seymour QC rejected a police complaint that Mr Okoro had been aggressive, ruling that the issue had been ‘exaggerated quite unacceptably’. Close analysis of the custody suite DVD revealed the suggestion that the suspect had been aggressive was 'not justified', said the judge. Mr Okoro's arrest was unjustified, as was the decision to place him in handcuffs, the judge found. Mr Okoro, from Shoreditch, east London, was awarded £9,000 for permanent 'loss of function' to his dislocated left wrist - caused by the initial application of the handcuffs - and £2,000 for the injuries to his right knee. The judge also allocated £2,000 'for the arrest, the false imprisonment and the assault which the application of the handcuffs amounted to' - giving a total of £13,000.

18 January 2011, Alan Travis, Paul Lewis and Martin Wainwright, guardian.co.uk

The government said today that a private company run by police chiefs should be stripped of its power to run undercover spies in the wake of a Guardian investigation into the police officer Mark Kennedy, who spent seven years posing as an environmental activist. The Home Office minister Nick Herbert and senior police officers acknowledged for the first time that "something had gone very wrong" in the Kennedy case, which led to the collapse last week of the trial of six people accused of planning to invade a Nottinghamshire power station. Herbert said that the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), a limited company with responsibility for some sensitive national operations, is to lose control of three teams involved in tackling so-called "domestic extremism".

18 Jan 2011, Joe Murphy, Political Editor, This is London

A cover-up row erupted when the official Iraq inquiry complained it had been banned from revealing records of the secret invasion talks between Tony Blair and George Bush. In a bombshell statement, inquiry chairman Sir John Chilcot revealed that "critical" evidence was being withheld from the public on the orders of Britain's top civil servant. The hidden papers include minutes of discussions and private memos sent by the former prime minister to the US president who led the 2003 invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.

17th January 2011, Sarah Harris, Daily Mail

More than 10,000 primary school pupils in a single year have been labelled racist or homophobic over minor squabbles. Even toddlers in nursery classes are being penalised for so-called hate crimes such as using the words ‘white trash’ or ‘gaylord’. Schools are forced to report their language to education authorities, which keep a register of incidents. The school can also keep the pupil’s name and ‘offence’ on file. The record can be passed from primaries to secondaries or when a pupil moves between schools at the request of the new head.

18 January 2011, BBC News

Legal aid cuts will make it impossible to challenge pharmaceutical companies in the courts, the BBC has been told. The Law Society fears the proposed withdrawal of funding in England and Wales will prevent people from pursuing compensation. The Ministry of Justice insists there are other routes to justice, making legal aid "an unnecessary alternative form of funding". But president of the Law Society Linda Lee has told the BBC she believes the proposals are unfair. She said: "No-one can take on these cases without help from the state. This will leave pharmaceutical companies beyond the reach of the law.

18th January 2011, Ian Mason » Wandsworth Guardian

Red-faced town hall bosses have issued a public apology after residents’ personal details were accidentally published online. Wandsworth Council blamed the blunder on a “temporary glitch” in an automated electoral roll registration system which resulted in an undisclosed number of personal details being sold to a third-party company.

18 Jan 2011, Nicola Brittain, Computing

The merging and outsourcing of local government services is likely to lead to an increased number of data breaches, according one security expert. The recent news that Westminster, Kensington & Chelsea and Hammersmith & Fulham are to merge services is the latest in a series of merger announcements. Graeme Stewart, business development director for Sophos, explained that these moves tend to see the management of information security put to one side. “We will start to see problems such as those experienced with the NHS IT system, which has more data breaches than any other body because it is centrally managed," Stewart said.

17 Jan 2011, This is Hull and East Riding

HUMBERSIDE Police have paid out more than £6,700 after arresting a 15-year-old boy in a case of mistaken identity, the Mail can reveal. Joshua Stevens was arrested at his family home in Kyffin Avenue, east Hull, last January, accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl. He spent 13 hours under lock and key. Joshua was fingerprinted, had his picture taken and a saliva swab used to get a DNA profile. But his arrest turned out to be a case of mistaken identity. A claim by Williamsons Solicitors on behalf of Joshua – now aged 16 – saying the arrest was wrongful and that he was detained unlawfully, has now been settled by the force. His father Alan told the Mail the family will now be able to move forward. He said: "Joshua still has nightmares about spending the night in the cells but at least this means the end of everything. "It has taken a year, and all we wanted was recognition that something went wrong – I feel the settlement demonstrates this." The force is paying Joshua £3,861, is settling legal fees of £2,558 and is reimbursing the teenager's parents with £337, after they cancelled a holiday when their son was arrested. A letter from the force's solicitors states: "The offer is made to settle with no further action".

17th January 2011, London Net

THE METROPOLITAN Police's Counter Terrorism unit wants universities to snoop on students campaigning against tuition fee rises, it has been revealed. "I would be grateful should you pick up any relevant information that would be helpful to all of us to anticipate possible demonstrations or occupations, please forward it onto me," read part of an email from an unnamed Counter Terrorism officer. The email was sent to at least 20 universities and colleges in London over the last week.

Jan 17 2011, Claire Miller, South Wales Echo

CARDIFF council has been criticised after it was revealed the authority has used covert surveillance to spy on the public 57 times in the past five years. Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), local authorities can authorise officers to spy on people – outside their homes and vehicles – to gather evidence of crime and disorder. Between 2006 and 2010, officers asked for permission to spy on suspected wrongdoers 63 times and were given permission by senior staff on 57 occasions.

17th January 2011, James White, Daily Mail

A painting depicting David Beckham being crucified was at the centre of a police investigation today. Officers visited the Johnny Cotter Gallery in Folkestone, Kent, to interview the artist. In it, Beckham, wearing a red long-sleeve England football shirt and a loin cloth, appears bleeding and nailed to the Cross by his hands and feet. Artist Mr Cotter who created the work said two police officers visited him and told him there had been a complaint that it was causing offence. He agreed to take it down but was last night contacting police again to see under what law they acted. He said: 'This is not an anti-Christian painting. The point of it is to question who we worship in the 21st century.

16 January 2011, Mark Townsend, The Observer

A woman who went on hunger strike in protest at her detention in the Yarl's Wood immigration removal centre claims she has been silenced by the state after being held in a prison without charge for almost a year. Denise McNeil, a 35-year-old Jamaican, was transferred from the centre in Bedfordshire to Holloway prison in London last February after her hunger strike ended in violence when she was allegedly assaulted by Yarl's Wood staff. Her lawyer said her imprisonment was highly unusual as McNeil, a mother, could not be classified as a risk to the public and so be legally detained in prison.

16 January 2011, BBC News

A chief superintendent at West Yorkshire Police has called for a DNA database of men who use prostitutes. Ch Supt Alison Rose, who works in Bradford South, said if DNA was taken men might "think again" about committing crimes against women. But Guy Herbert from the No2ID campaign said DNA samples could lead to false accusations.

16 Jan 2011, John Bingham, Telegraph

An undercover policeman who spent seven years living as an environmental activist has claimed that at least 15 other agents had infiltrated the movement.

16 January 2011, Mark Townsend, The Observer

On a little-known police database there are 1,822 mugshots of individuals. The photographs are held by the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU), and few outside the organisation know who these people are. The unit is part of a nexus of policing organisations that last Monday came to attention when a trial of six environmental campaigners collapsed after an undercover police officer who had infiltrated the group offered to give evidence on its behalf.

15th January 2011, Daily Mail

A third undercover police spy who infiltrated a Cardiff anarchist group has been unmasked. The 44-year-old male officer worked for four years as a key member of the 20-strong Anarchist network in the city and had an affair with a female member. His exposure comes as two separate official inquiries are being prepared into the activities of secret police surveillance.

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Attack of the drones

16 January 2011, Owen Bowcott and Paul Lewis, guardian.co.uk

Unmanned aircraft are now a vital tool in war zones, but our skies could soon be buzzing with spy planes that feed information back to the police – and even the paparazzi

15 Jan 2011, Christopher Booker, Telegraph

In recent months, I have reported on many disturbing examples of how our system of “family protection” has gone horribly off the rails, but none is more bizarre than this week’s. A woman who was temporarily paralysed in a fall had her baby taken into care while she lay in hospital, writes Christopher Booker

Jan 15 2011, Charlotte Thomson, Daily Record

SMOKERS will be banned from adopting or fostering children under new rules introduced in Aberdeen. Proposals to stop the recruitment of smokers to care for children under the age of five were backed by city councillors. Children with disabilities, respiratory problems or youngsters born into nonsmoking families will also be protected. Plans to completely ban smokers from looking after children were withdrawn by the social work convener in November. It was feared those measures were too draconian.

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Drones: the next generation

14 January 2011, Owen Bowcott, The Guardian

Whatever the ethical turbulence, the aeronautical and arms industry is in full flight towards a new generation of drones designed to fulfil an extraordinary array of military and peacetime requirements. The Taranis, Mantis, Zephyr and Herti aircraft are designed for a diverse list of both military and civilian tasks.

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Privacy worry over caller ID

Jan 14 2011, Lancashire Evening Post

A computer expert has raised privacy concerns about councils gathering callers’ personal details to store on databases. The man, from Inskip, near Preston, was alarmed to find Wyre Council used a caller identification system to automatically bring up his details, including address, on screen every time he rang the local authority’s contact centre. His concerns come after Lancashire police came under criticism from privacy campaigners last week for storing 600,000 innocent people’s details on a database of callers. The man, who did not want to be named, said he was not warned his details would be stored by Wyre Council.

14 January 2011, Tom Espiner, ZD Net

Government plans to intercept web communications need to be scrutinised, according to Labour MP Tom Watson. Watson launched an early day motion on Tuesday calling for a public consultation on the Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP), a plan to give the intelligence services and police access to all web communications. The plan was initially launched by the Labour government. Watson said that the IMP would include a proposal to store "every email, webpage visit and telephone call made in the UK for an unspecified period". The coalition government signalled that it was going ahead with the plan in October, in the Strategic Defence Security Review.

14 Jan 2011, Victoria Ward, Telegraph

A teacher falsely accused of groping school girls is to launch a final bid to clear his name after a seven-year battle in which the allegations on his police record have prevented him from getting another job. He has since been unable to teach as the allegations appear on enhanced Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks, casting a permanent veil of suspicion. The experience has left him battling depression and has cost him £154,000, including his home.

January 14 2011, Cherry Wilson, Croydon Advertiser

A POLICE officer has been charged with kicking a suspect in the head and jabbing him in the eye with his work radio while on duty. PC Edward Prince, 30, who works for the borough's police force, has appeared in court accused of attacking Nyrone Games on November 6, 2009. He was one of more than a dozen officers who were involved in a dramatic operation to arrest Games, who was wanted for allegedly breaching the terms of his licence. Police swooped near the Esso petrol garage in Brighton Road and restrained Games, who later had to be taken to hospital with a facial injury. Games, 27, who is from the Lewisham area, was charged with affray following his arrest but the case was later discontinued due to a lack of evidence.

13 January 2011, By Robert Verkaik, The Independent

The Metropolitan Police blocked legal action aimed at identifying all the alleged victims uncovered by its criminal investigation into phone hacking by the News of the World. Documents filed at the High Court in London show that Scotland Yard is resisting a claim for a judicial review of its handling of the case, on the basis that it does not have a public duty to contact everyone brought to the attention of detectives.

13 January 2011, Rob Evans, Matthew Taylor, Afua Hirsch and Paul Lewis, guardian.co.uk

Police chiefs are being called on to review the way long-term undercover operations are handled amid growing concerns about the secretive unit at the heart of their spying operation. The lawyer and former director of public prosecutions Lord Macdonald said the handling of undercover officers appeared to be "alarming" and "opaque" after Mark Kennedy was unmasked as an undercover police officer spying on the environmental movement. "There should be published guidelines," said Macdonald. "It is particularly important that the public understands what the principles and what the rules are. The fact this operation is so opaque, nobody knows how it was run, what the objectives were, why it ran for so long, I think that's quite alarming."

13th January 2011, Chris Cheesman, Amateur Photographer

Police insist they had every right to stop an innocent 78-year-old who was taking photographs in Norwich city centre but have refused to say why his actions were deemed 'suspicious'. Retired university professor Howard Temperley was quizzed by police officers on Christmas Eve following what police described to Amateur Photographer as 'a report of suspicious behaviour'. Police officers in a patrol car swooped on Howard moments after he had been banned from taking pictures outside nearby Chapelfield Shopping Centre. A security guard had approached Howard - a former professor of American Studies at the University of East Anglia - after he was seen taking pictures of people doing Christmas shopping.

13 January 2011, Helen Carter, guardian.co.uk

Police in Merseyside are being investigated after a 14-year-old boy sustained injuries to his liver and spleen when he was arrested last month. The boy was released from custody without charge but was found to have sustained injuries when he was examined in hospital. The Independent Police Complaints Commission is investigating an allegation that officers used excessive force during the arrest.

13 Jan 2011, Alexander Britton, This is Nottingham

A TEACHER has failed in his bid for compensation after information Notts Police passed on to the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) led to him being turned down for jobs. Vincent Desmond took action against the force after he found that an arrest over an unproven assault allegation was hindering his job chances. He accused the force of "running roughshod over his human rights". The case ended up at the Court of Appeal yesterday. During the hearing, the court heard that Mr Desmond claimed potential employers were put off hiring him after making CRB checks. The allegation dated back nearly ten years, the court heard. Mr Desmond, from Middlewich, Cheshire, was staying in a hotel in Mansfield Road in the city in May 2001 when a distressed woman told police she had been sexually assaulted in Parliament Street. The woman told officers a man had dragged her into an alley and tried to pull her trousers down. The woman said the attacker had asked her for directions to a hotel. Officers visited the hotel in question and arrested Mr Desmond on suspicion of indecent assault. The officers said he "appeared to fit the description" of the attacker which the woman had given them, the court heard. Mr Desmond denied the allegation and was released on bail the following day. After an investigation, Notts Police decided they would take no further action against Mr Desmond. The file was closed and the investigating officer noted: "It is apparent Desmond is not responsible for the crime". But details of the incident were still passed on to the CRB, which Mr Desmond says caused him a lot of stress and impeded his teaching career.

January 13 2011, Adam Wagner, UK Human Rights blog

The Court of Appeal has ruled that it is not possible to sue the police in negligence for not filling in an Enhanced Criminal Record Certificate (ECRC). The ruling shows that the courts are still reluctant to allow negligence claims against the police, and provides useful guidance as to the duty of care of public authorities towards the general public.

13 January 2011, James Dean, Law Gazette

The security of the virtual court system has been called into question once again, after a video technician appeared on a virtual court monitor during a confidential police station consultation between a solicitor and his client and began talking to the pair, the Gazette has learned.

The undercover police officer whose unmasking led to the collapse of a trial of six environmental protesters on Monday apparently also worked as a corporate spy, according to documents seen by the Guardian. Details of how Mark Kennedy went from police officer to businessman reveal the extent to which shadowy corporate firms appear to have developed links with the police.

13 January 2011, Jody McIntyre, guardian.co.uk

In December 2008, the government quietly awarded the £150m contract to collect and securely handle the 2011 census data to Lockheed Martin, the second-largest arms manufacturer in the world. It makes bombs, bomber jets and has run most of the US military's intelligence gathering and interrogation, including at Guantánamo Bay, where it operated through subsidiary companies. Even if we ignore the fact that Lockheed Martin sits at No 1 on the Pogo Federal Contractor Misconduct database, with more than 50 alleged cases of corruption, fraud, bribery, environmental damage and discrimination, there's worse to come. As a US-owned company, under the post-9/11 USA Patriot Act, Lockheed Martin can be forced to hand over any private data in its possession to the US government and/or the CIA. It doesn't make the government's promises to keep our data safe sound quite so reassuring.

13 Jan 2011, Nick Farrell in Rome, Tech Eye

Brooklyn College in the Land of the Free had a novel way of dealing with a student who claimed that there was a spy camera in her room. When she went to the Brooklyn College Campus Security and Safety Office to complain that her off campus landlord was using a spy cam on her, they offered her an involuntary two-week stay at a psychiatric hospital to treat her "paranoia". The only thing was that the landlord had installed a spy camera in Chinemerem Eze's bedroom. It is not clear why, or what he was doing with the film. However, Eze found the camera after she had been "cured" by the hospital. By the time she got out of the loony bin she missed her final exams and was not able to complete them. As a result she wound up losing a scholarship she'd received from the school. Since she is in the US, she is suing the security officers, psychologist, and the school for negligence, emotional distress, and false imprisonment.

13 January 2011, Batley News

Smoking is an expensive habit but a landlord had to shell out more than most after being fined for lighting up in his own pub. Kevin West, landlord of the Commercial Hotel, was fined £102.40 and a £15 victim surcharge after a spot check by an environmental health officer. The front door was open so he walked through into the main bar area where he saw Mr West sat at the far end of the bar. When Mr West saw who the officer was he led him outside to talk and it was then he noticed the lit cigarette in his hand.

13 January 2011, Tony Collins, Computerworld UK

Little known outside the NHS, Shared Business Services is Oracle’s single biggest customer. Much of its NHS work handled in India. It says patient data is kept secure and confidential. But it’s a system that’s largely self-policed.

13 January 11, Tony Collins, Computerworld UK

There are no fully independent checks on what NHS patient data is viewed in India where privacy cannot be enforced. NHS Shared Business Services answers my questions

12 Jan 2011, Philip Johnston, Telegraph

The Government's bonfire of pettifogging laws is in danger of fizzling out, writes Philip Johnston.

12 January 2011, Kenneth Roy, Scottish Review

On the Young Scot website, there is the following exchange: Is this the start of a national ID scheme for Scotland? No. It's completely voluntary. This is no longer true. At Breadalbane Academy in Aberfeldy, and we believe at other schools in Perth and Kinross, pupils now need to carry a National Entitlement Card in order to gain access to their own education. Parents have been told that the system has been put in place 'to maximise security in the school building'.

13 Jan 2011, sQid

A secondary school in Scotland has launched a new cashless catering scheme, it has been revealed. Students at Moffat Academy will now be able to use their National Entitlement Card (NEC) to pay for school meals, while parents will be able to top up their child's account online.

11 January 2011, Kenneth Roy, Scottish Review

Readers who have been following our series of articles on Scotland's surveillance culture will be aware that a series of linked databases is as intrusive, as damaging to civil liberties, as any centralised one. Today we will show how part of this federation of databases operates and how it is destroying lives.

12 January 2011, Paul Lewis, Rob Evans and Vikram Dodd, guardian.co.uk

The controversy over a police surveillance network embedded in the environmental protest movement deepened dramatically tonight after the Guardian identified a second undercover officer who spent years living a double life as an activist.

12 January 2011, Kable

The Home Office has opted in to the Eurodac fingerprint database, which collects the fingerprints of asylum seekers and some illegal entrants to the European Union.

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Advisers foretold ID's doom

January 12 2011, Mark Ballard, Computer Weekly

The Identity Card Scheme offers a lesson in the infeasibility of IT systems held to political ransom. The cost of failure was too high for the Labour government. So the Home Office pressed on Quixotically with the system, despite never overcoming its critical weaknesses.

12th January 2011, Stephen Bailey » Bournemouth Echo

REVENUE and Customs are carrying out an “urgent” inquiry after a parcel full of private companies’ tax returns was delivered to a former mayor of Christchurch. Michael Hodges’ wife signed for the package when it arrived by courier but he was shocked to find it contained the sensitive details of 42 businesses. He phoned HMRC to explain but became so frustrated at an apparent lack of interest and being kept on hold that he contacted the Daily Echo. Mr Hodges, who was a fraud investigator for HMRC himself in the 1960s, said: “In those days you wouldn’t dream of letting something like this happen. I rang one of the accountants and he was concerned because some of this is pretty sensitive information. The revenue only became interested when I said I was calling the Echo.”

12 January 2011, Kable

Freedom of Information (FoI) requests sent by the Yorkshire Post to trusts and other public organisations across Yorkshire revealed a number of serious data breaches, including a doctor accessing a colleague's medical records at a hospital in Doncaster, and a cleaner at a Rotherham hospital viewing a friend's private medical files. Police forces in the region also recorded a high number of breaches to information security, with Humberside revealing that 31 members of staff had been disciplined for illicitly viewing data over recent years. This included one CID officer who received a written warning for running criminal record checks on his nephew.

12 Jan 2011, Martin Beckford, Telegraph

Millions of state workers will soon be asked sensitive questions about their sexuality and religious beliefs under new equality requirements.

12 January 2011, Kathleen Hall, Computer Weekly

Three government agencies have been criticised over a data sharing mistake that led to the wrongful disclosure of a woman's personal and financial information. HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), the Child Support Agency and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) have been criticised by Parliamentary Ombudsman Ann Abraham for releasing the woman's personal information to her former partner and reducing her child support payments without her knowledge. The report said the departments had then 'collectively failed' to put things right. Abraham expressed concern that the network of computer systems used by HMRC, the Child Support Agency and the DWP could make changes to Ms M's personal data without her knowledge or consent. Yet an interrogation of that network cannot now locate the source of any errors. Each of the agencies blamed another for the mistake and took the view that as the mistake had been made by 'the system' and that there was nothing they could do, found Abraham.

12 January 2011, Daily Mail

They stumbled around, slurred and headed for the bar to order another drink. The scenario may sound familiar, but these were not your average weekend drunks. They were undercover investigators engaged in a £4,000 initiative by a group of cash-strapped local organisations to check that pubs were serving alcohol responsibly. The three ‘professional witnesses’, two men and a woman, were hired from a private surveillance company to play the fake drunks. The trio worked for nine nights from 8pm to 3am over three weekends, costing a total of £4,200, Roly Schwarz, the community safety enforcement manager for Conwy and Denbighshire, confirmed last night.

12 Jan 2011, By David Millward, Telegraph

Motor insurers could be given access to Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency records, Mike Penning, the road safety minister, has told MPs. Appearing before the Transport Select Committee, Mr Penning said the Government was looking at giving insurers greater access to motorists’ driving record. Because of data protection laws, a driver’s consent would be required before the DVLA opens its records to insurance companies. One option being considered by ministers would be to allow companies to include a request for access to the DVLA database on the insurance proposal form.

11 January 2011, Simon Jenkins, guardian.co.uk

Why have a private firm run police to spy on a few greens? The Ratcliffe Six case is a warning story of securocrats out of control

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