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A lifetime of ID control at a price
After years of little more than hot air from a sequence of Home Secretaries, we're finally getting to see the fine detail [1] of what "ID cards" will really mean to the average person. It may be quite a shock to those who haven't been paying attention.
It is not just the sheer amount of personal information that you will be required to surrender a wake-up for any remaining who thought this was a simple card it is the threats that will be used to force compliance. You could have £1000 penalties sent to you by e-mail [2] if IPS thinks you've been bad and why might they think that?
If you fail to turn up at a time and place of their choosing; refuse to be fingerprinted, photographed or hand over documents (e.g. birth or marriage certificates); fail to tell them you've moved house for 3 months.
And anything that *they* reckon is "deliberate or reckless" provision of incorrect information could lead to 2 years in prison. Welcome to a lifetime of state identity control...
Phil Booth, NO2ID [3] national coordinator said:
"So the state 'managing' your identity boils down to telling them everything there is to know about you, under threat and coughing up time and again for the privilege.
"This must be a wake-up call for everyone who bought the line that ID was just a simple card."
-ENDS-
Notes for editors:
1) 'Identity Cards Act Secondary Legislation A Consultation' can be found on the IPS website:
http://www.ips.gov.uk/identity/downloads/NIS_Legislation.pdf
2) Only the first official warning need be by letter, and that will give you just a fortnight to comply.
3) NO2ID is the UK-wide non-partisan campaign against ID cards and the database state. See http://www.no2id.net/dbstate.php for a list of 'database state' initiatives that NO2ID is actively opposing.
4) Other dubious 'highlights' include:
a tax on marriage women who change their name will have to buy a new card;
those without bank accounts won't be able to get ID you can only pay by credit or debit card, or cheque;
the homeless will be able to nominate a park bench as their 'address'
For further information, or for immediate or future interview, please contact:
Phil Booth (National Co-ordinator, national.coordinator@no2id.net) on 07974 230 839
Guy Herbert (General Secretary, general.secretary@no2id.net) on 07956 544 308
Michael Parker (Press Officer, press.officer@no2id.net) on 07773 376 166
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Home Office buries bad news, weird news and a tactical retreat for ID cards
Under cover of the entirely predictable media preoccupation with the results of the US elections, the Home Secretary is once more to address a friendly think tank audience − at an as yet undisclosed location [1] − in an attempt to bury bad news. Except this time she'll be announcing bad news, weird news and a tactical retreat.
The bad news is that despite all attempts to shift the costs off-balance-sheet, this autumn's report to parliament on the ID scheme costs will show an increase in the projected spending over the next 10 years. The Home Office projections only show estimates for its own set-up and running costs for the scheme. They do not include using ID cards for anything.
The weird news is private companies will be 'encouraged' to bid for collecting fingerprints from the general public, which begs the questions - Why has the Home Office spent millions already for its own chain of Identity and Passport Service enrolment centres? How can such a procedure be made secure? And, who would be crazy enough to bid, given the guaranteed unpopularity of fingerprinting the public?
The tactical retreat is the news that "ID cards for airside workers from 2009" actually means trial schemes at two airports from this time next year. Jacqui Smith claimed as recently as February that 200,000 people would be captured for the scheme in this way, and that it was justified by the needs of security.
Phil Booth, NO2ID [2] National Coordinator said:
'The Home Office knows the more people are reminded of the ID scheme the more they despise it. Hence one more set-piece speech to a hand-picked audience on a busy news day. An open presentation to parliament or a press conference might ask questions or stimulate discussion. The Home Office wants compliance, not discussion.'
On the costs report, Phil Booth said:
'The ink is barely dry on the first minor contracts for the ID scheme and already costs are spiralling. Yet of course these figures are just a fraction of the real cost. There are billions to be buried in other departments' budgets. The cost to citizens and to business of cooperating with the surveillance state will be billions more.'
On private companies for fingerprinting he said:
'The government is selling a pig in a poke. What company is going embarrass itself to the tune of millions for a contract that that everyone outside the Home Office itself knows will be cancelled by a new administration?'
On the 'pilot' of ID cards for airside workers:
'The unions [3] and the industry [4] are opposed. An expert just described the security justification as 'absolute bunkum'[5]. Dropping to trials at a couple of airports is a transparent attempt to save ministerial face. Dropping the entire scheme, by comparison, would save only privacy, liberty, public money and long-term national embarrassment.'
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Notes for editors:
1) Invitations issued on 3rd November by the Social Market Foundation state: 'Location: Central London. Details will be confirmed nearer the time.'
2) NO2ID is the UK-wide non-partisan campaign against ID cards and the database state. See http://www.no2id.net/dbstate.php for a list of 'database state' initiatives that NO2ID is actively opposing.
3) The TUC has voted to oppose compulsory ID cards for airside workers, and the much-vaunted introduction of 'ID cards for foreign nationals' has been downscaled to just 50,000 cards issued before April 2009: http://www.printweek.com/business/news/847818/TUC-vows-fight-discriminatory-ID-cards-trial/
4) The British Air Transport Association described its "joint and determined opposition" to the proposal in a letter to the Home Secretary on 30th June 2008.
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2008/07/02/IDCardsHomeSecretaryLetter300608.pdf
5) See 'Gordon Brown's terror claims for ID cards are 'bunkum' says GCHQ expert'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/3280098/Gordon-Browns-terror-claims-for-ID-cards-are-bunkum-says-GCHQ-expert.html
For further information, or for immediate or future interview, please contact:
Phil Booth (National Co-ordinator, national.coordinator@no2id.net) on 07974 230 839
Guy Herbert (General Secretary, general.secretary@no2id.net) on 07956 544 308
Michael Parker (Press Officer, press.officer@no2id.net) on 07773 376 166
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Campaigners tell government: "You can't protect it. So don't collect it."
The Prime Minister has admitted - following yet another data breach [1] - that the government cannot promise to keep people's personal information safe [2]. Privacy campaign NO2ID [3] demands a halt to the mass collection and trafficking of personal data by the government, as the only cure.
NO2ID named the National Identity Scheme ('ID cards'), ContactPoint (the database of every child and their family's details), the NHS Care Records System (centralised medical records) and the proposed Communications Data (phone and internet records) database as the four most dangerous database state initiatives that simply cannot be allowed to proceed.
Phil Booth, NO2ID national coordinator said:
"Blaming human error is a cop out. It is the fundamentally flawed policy of gathering and trafficking masses of personal information within and across departments and agencies that makes these losses inevitable.
"When is the government going to wake up and take some responsibility? You can't protect it. So don't collect it."
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Notes for editors:
1) NO2ID is the UK-wide non-partisan campaign against ID cards and the database state. See http://www.no2id.net/dbstate.php for a list of 'database state' initiatives that NO2ID is actively opposing.
2) http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-1082402/Tax-website-shut-memory-stick-secret-personal-data-12million-pub-car-park.html - Mail on Sunday, 2/11/08
3) 'Gordon Brown says government cannot ensure data safety', Sunday Times, 2/11/08 - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5065795.ece
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Dated data protection won't touch new privacy crisis
Reacting to Information Commissioner Richard Thomass remarks in a
speech today[1], NO2ID[2] suggested the ideas of Data Protection are no
longer adequate. Mr Thomas called for CEOs to take responsibility for
preventing data-losses, but the campaign group claims this is beside the
point in the face of the determined drive by government agencies to
sweep away privacy.[3]
Phil Booth, NO2ID National Coordinator said:
'The ICO says the buck for data breaches should stop with CEOs. So is
Gordon Brown listening? The privacy crisis is the creation of this
government and he should be held responsible.
'The snooping-obsessed government is losing more personal information
than ever, because it has seized more than ever. You can't trust a
stalker state.'
Guy Herbert, General Secretary of NO2ID said:
'Massive loss and misuse of personal information is just a side effect.
The real danger to privacy is the drive for ever more legal collection
and sharing without a choice. Data protection is now hollow. It always
was back to front. You should control what is done with your
information, not the government and not a regulator.'
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Notes for editors:
1) 'Privacy watchdog calls on CEOs to take responsibility for data
protection safeguards' 29 October 2008
2) NO2ID is the UK-wide non-partisan campaign against ID cards and the
database state. See http://www.no2id.net/dbstate.php for a list of
'database state' initiatives that NO2ID is actively opposing.
3) The Ministry of Justice has been charged with removing the legal
protections against data-sharing where they are inconvenient to
government agencies. See 'Information sharing vision statement' 13
September 2006
http://www.justice.gov.uk/publications/informationsharingvision.htm
There are numerous examples of exceptions to normal expectations of
privacy and confidentiality created in recent legislation.
For further information, or for immediate or future interview, please
contact:
Phil Booth (National Co-ordinator, national.coordinator@no2id.net) on
07974 230 839
Guy Herbert (General Secretary, general.secretary@no2id.net) on 07956
544 308
Michael Parker (Press Officer, press.officer@no2id.net) on 07773 376 166
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NO2ID: Halt biometric bullying by roadside fingerprinting
NO2ID [1] this morning calls for plans to allow the police to fingerprint
people on the street using mobile scanners [2] to be put on hold until vital
legal protections are put in place.
The plans would set a significant and potentially very dangerous trap for
the public. Police currently have the power to demand fingerprints from
someone only after arresting them. Fingerprinting at police stations is done
under carefully controlled conditions.
If scanners are in use, the police will in practice be checking fingerprints
using technology that is known to give false results a significant amount of
the time [3], and members of the public may find themselves under pressure
to give prints "voluntarily" when it is not legally required to identify
them. Given the government's appalling record on abuse and mishandling of
personal data and its "fairy-tale thinking" about biometric technology [4],
NO2ID makes four demands:
1) That failure rates as well as the success rates are regularly reported to
Parliament from the very outset, beginning with full disclosure (no claims
of "commercial confidentiality") on Project Midas and previous trials.
Government has a habit of only reporting the 'good news' about biometrics.
2) That the scanners be limited by law to checking only against *criminal*
fingerprint databases. Any checks against the proposed National Identity
Register, for example, would be a fishing expedition [5] effectively turning
the entire population into suspects.
3) That it be declared illegal for fingerprints gathered in this way - or
any data obtained, such as the name of the person involved - from being
stored permanently [6] except in connection with an actual prosecution.
Otherwise there is nothing to stop this, over time, resulting in the
creeping fingerprinting the general population, starting with the young and
members of ethnic minorities.
4) That arresting someone for refusal or failure to provide fingerprints
when there is not otherwise a problem identifying them or when no offence
has been committed, be clearly banned and made a disciplinary offence for
police officers [7].
Phil Booth, NO2ID's national coordinator said:
"This implies a completely new power for police to fingerprint you in the
street, using an iffy technology. If refusing to cooperate can get you
arrested, then you would have not just fingerprints but DNA on a criminal
database for the rest of your life. That means the state can pick on anyone
at any time."
-ENDS-
Notes for editors:
1) NO2ID is the independent, non-partisan, cross-party campaign against the
National Identity Scheme and the database state. See
http://www.no2id.net/dbstate.php for a list of 'database state' initiatives
that NO2ID is actively opposing.
2) See, e.g. 'Police will use new device to take fingerprints in street',
Guardian, 27/10/08:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/oct/27/project-midas-fingerprint-scanner-liberty
3) The only medium-scale test of biometrics on the general population to
date was done by the UK Passport Service in 2004. It showed failure rates as
high as 1 in 5 for fingerprints:
http://dematerialisedid.com/PDFs/UKPSBiometrics_Enrolment_Trial_Report.pdf -
301 page report, interestingly no longer available on the Home Office
website, which showed that 19-20% of people could not be matched to
fingerprints enrolled only a few minutes earlier, and that up to 4% of
people could not be enrolled at all.
All biometric systems have to be 'tuned' to balance false positives (making
incorrect matches with prints already held) against false negatives (failing
to match against stored prints). It is literally impossible to design a
large-scale system that will correctly and uniquely match every person
checked 100% of the time.
4) See security experts' letter to the Joint Committee on Human Rights, 26/11/07:
http://blogs.spectrum.ieee.org/riskfactor/2007/11/uk_id_card_fairy_land.html
- although related to the National Identity Scheme in this instance, experts
condemn ministers' "fairy-tale view of the capabilities of [biometric]
technology" across mass populations.
5) During the Committee stage of the Identity Cards Bill, Home Office minister Tony McNulty stated: "There are safeguards not only against state agencies, for want of a better phrase, *going fishing in the database* but
against misbehaviour and abuse of the database by those who manage the system." See Hansard:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmstand/d/st050706/am/50706s07.htm
There are clearly NO such safeguards as Tony Blair, in a Downing Street
briefing in November 2006, claimed that police WOULD go on 'fishing
expeditions' in the biometrics held in the National Identity Register (NIR),
the database at the heart of the ID card system:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-414942/Blair-says-ID-cards-used-fight-crime.html
It has also in past weeks emerged that that the Home Office will be testing
NIR systems with a fingerprint data type designed for criminal records, but
which is incompatible with its own design:
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/10/17/uk-tests-identity-scheme
6) The experience of the National DNA Database has shown that the
government will simply pass laws to make it legal to retain even highly
sensitive personal data for life, once this is happening (illegally) in
practice.
7) People should have a right to biometric privacy and if the police have no
other reason to suspect someone of a crime, they should not be allowed to
invade this with a process that is technologically dodgy at best and
guaranteed to lead to false suspicion or worse in at least a percentage of
cases.
For further information, or for immediate or future interview, please
contact:
Phil Booth (National Co-ordinator, national.coordinator@no2id.net) on 07974 230 839
Guy Herbert (General Secretary, general.secretary@no2id.net) on 07956 544 308
Michael Parker (Press Officer, press.officer@no2id.net) on 07773 376 166
