Source: Telegraph
Checks will be made on all children to identify potential criminals under a further extension of the “surveillance state” announced by Tony Blair today. A Downing Street review of law and order policy also called for greater use of sophisticated CCTV, an expanded DNA database and “instant justice” powers for police. The review is intended to chart a course ahead for the next 10 years by focusing more “on the offender, not the offence.”

Most crime is committed by a small number of prolific offenders who could be identified almost from birth, ministers believe. After 10 years concentrating on tougher sentences, the review paper said it wanted to tackle the “underlying causes..through better targetting.” Vulnerable children and those at risk will be identified by “trigger” factors such as parents in jail or on drugs. They will be subject to personalised measures, including home visits from specialist practitioners. But the Government says the net should be cast as widely as possible “to prevent criminality developing.”

It proposes to “establish universal checks throughout a child’s development to help service providers to identify those most at risk of offending.” The document added: “These checks should piggyback on existing contact points such as the transition to secondary schools.”

The plan will be backed up by a new database for all children due to be up and running by 2008. It will contain basic information identifying the child and its parents and will have a “facility for practitioners to indicate to others that they have information to share, are taking action, or have undertaken an assessment, in relation to a child.” The database was ostensibly proposed to prevent another tragic death such as that of Victoria Climbie but now appears to be the basis for cradle-to-adult monitoring. It is not clear when data will be erased from the database.

The Government believes children can be prevented from becoming offenders if early intervention is targeted at those who displayed certain behaviours. These include having a short attention span or behaving aggressively or living in a difficult or deprived environment.

Some children who show signs of becoming criminals are logged and monitored by dozens of early interventions schemes. Those aged 8-13 may be referred to a Youth Inclusion and Support Panel if they are thought to be potential offenders and data about them is held on an information system. Other agencies target 50 children and young people thought most ‘at risk’ of offending, truancy or social exclusion.

Mr Blair said the main aim of policy was to tackle the “hard core” of 100,000 criminals who, he said, commit about half of all crimes in England and Wales. Career criminals would be subject to prolific offender licences, punishable by three years’ jail if broken, which would impose a range of restrictions on their activities.

“They are not an alternative to prison. They are in addition to prison,” Mr Blair said when he launched the review at a conference in Westminster. “But we have to ensure that, when people leave prison, they do not rebound straight back in.” He added: “These people have serious problems and targeting the offender means taking those problems seriously. If we want a criminal justice system that works, we have to target the offender and not simply the offence.”

Other measures include tougher community sentences and special units for mentally ill prisoners, where drug treatment would be available. The Home Office also announced a review of policing to be carried out by Sir Ronnie Fanagan. the chief inspector of constabulary. He will try to find ways to cut red tape, make the police more accessible to the public and give forces greater say over their budgets.

Comment: In other words, if you are different from what the government considered the norm, and thus deemed a “social outcast”, you may find yourself detained and drugged in order to force you into submission to the desired standard. If you also happen to have a short attention span, which a lot of kids naturally have at the ages they propose to monitor, you are likely going to find your child forced to take drugs and will have to endure home visits and invasion of all privacy. I bet the big pharmaceutical companies are already rubbing their greedy little claws together on the mere idea of being able to “help” bring all the above together in a perfect government-and-pharma symbiosis!

Source: This is London
British citizens will be quizzed on up to 200 different pieces of personal information in a 30-minute grilling if they want a passport, it has been revealed. From May, thousands of applicants will be forced to travel 20 miles or more - at their own expense - to attend one of the interviews.

The application process, which will cause huge inconvenience to holidaymakers, will take up to six weeks and involve at least 700 civil servants in a huge logistical exercise which threatens to descend into chaos. Those who fail to convince the bureaucrats they are who they say will be denied a travel document - or face a full investigation by antifraud experts. There is no formal appeal process.

Critics have likened the new system to an ‘interrogation’ and warned that it will prove intimidating to many law-abiding members of the public. It will also fuel alarm over the emergence of a ‘Big Brother Britain’, in which the Government holds detailed information about everybody living here. The details an applicant will be questioned on include sensitive financial information, such as bank account details and mortgage applications purchased by the Government from a credit-checking company.

Officials at the Identity and Passport Service defended the requirement for applicants to undergo the 30-minute interview process, comprising 20 minutes of questioning and ten minutes of form-filling. They say it will reduce the number of passports handed over to fraudsters and terrorists each year - a figure which currently stands at 10,000. The process will begin as soon as a person applies in writing for a passport. Initially, the new regime will apply to around 600,000 first-time applicants each year - but is likely to be extended to everybody wanting a document by 2009. To deal with the 600,000 applicants involves the appointment of 700 extra civil servants - 600 to carry out the interviews and 100 managers.

With 6.6million applications processed every year, extending the face-to-face interview to all applicants would require up to 7,000 staff. Once the application arrives, officials will begin compiling a ‘biographical footprint’, containing 200 different pieces of personal information. It will be drawn from Government records, birth and marriage certificates and - most controversially - material purchased by the IPS from one of the UK’s. The bill for buying the personal data from Equifax is one of the main reasons why the passport fee has rocketed to £66. As recently as December 2005, it cost only £42.

Bernard Herdan, executive director of the IPS, said the information would include previous and current addresses, how long they have lived there, who with, whether they have a mortgage, and any bank accounts which may be held.

Details of a person’s ancestors, family background and any credit cards applied for are also likely to be included. Once the ‘footprint’ is complete, the applicant will be invited to attend one of 69 interview offices due to open across the UK. They will not be open in the evening, forcing most people with jobs to attend on a Saturday. The smallest offices will open only two and a half days a week. Initially, Ministers claimed that over half of the population would be within 15 minutes of an office. Yesterday, officials conceded this was a crude estimate. Instead, they said most people would be within 20 miles - with travel costs to be paid by the applicant.

Once there, the interview will take place, with civil servants bombarding the would-be holidaymaker with questions from their ‘footprint’. Mr Herdan said there would be no pass or fail mark. Instead, the official will be attempting to get an overall picture of whether the person is who they say. Those rejected must write to the IPS to ask for the case to be reconsidered, or ask an MP or ombudsman to take up the matter. Even those who are successful are told to expect the process to take as long as six weeks, compared with three or four at present. The fast-track service, for people who desperately need a document within a week, has been scrapped altogether for first-time applicants.

Mr Herdan insisted the interview process was not meant to be ‘daunting’, but to weed out fraudulent applications. Critics, however, said the checks would impose a huge burden on the public in order to catch a tiny percentage of people to obtain fraudulent documents. The 10,000 figure constitutes only 0.15 per cent of the 6.6 million passports issued each year. They suggested the Government’s real motive was to gather as much personal data as possible, ahead of the introduction of controversial ID cards in 2009.

Tory immigration spokesman Damian Green said: “These interviews will do plenty to inconvenience the ordinary law-abiding British traveller. They will do very little to stop terrorists obtaining even more fraudulent passports.” Phil Booth, of the NO2ID campaign, said of the 10,000 fraudulent applications: “Assuming it is even vaguely right, then the Identity and Passport Service plans to add hundreds to the price of a family holiday, inconvenience and intimidate millions of lawabiding people, and spend billions of pounds - all to tackle a problem that affects just 0.15 per cent of all passports issued.” He added: “No-one should be fooled - the interrogation system is for the ID card scheme.”

Ministers have already ruled anybody who refuses to let their details go on the ID cards database will be banned from having a passport from 2009.

Source: Workplace Law
The GMB union has welcomed moves by the European Commission to study the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, because of concerns over the fact that they have been introduced in some workplaces in order to monitor employees. The Commission has agreed to set up an RFID Stakeholders Group and to publish recommendations on how to handle data security and privacy.

However, employers be warned, there are currently a number of pieces of legislation that make it illegal for employers to monitor staff’s email or calls without informing them. Under the Human Rights Act 1998, the Data Protection Act 1998, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, and the Telecommunications Regulations 2000 employers must inform employees why their email is being checked.

Source: Telegraph
The Government is to remove all barriers to banks sharing data on us in a bid to curb irresponsible lending. But the potential for error is huge, writes Teresa Hunter

The Government is poised to remove all privacy to our financial arrangements by allowing banks and other institutions to reveal full details of our accounts to each other and credit reference agencies, even though we may not have given permission for this data to be shared.

The move is likely to prove controversial as credit reference agencies can be prone to errors. Citizens Advice confirmed that the bureaux regularly deal with clients who have been refused credit because of problems with their files. Moira Haynes of Citizens Advice says: “There can be things on files which customers do not agree with, or imply financial associations with other people which do not exist. We do what we can to help them get the mistakes corrected.” [more]

Source: SignOn San Diego
“People ask me why I don’t just carry an RFID card in my wallet,” Graafstra said. “I don’t want to have to remember whether I have my card or my keys with me. I can leave my house and not carry anything with me.” Privacy advocates say today’s voluntary use is a step toward a future in which employers or the government mandate implants.

“It’s creepy,” said Beth Givens, director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse in San Diego. “People realize in their gut that if we require implanted chips, we’ve become the kind of society where people can be tracked by their government.” [more]

Source: UK Daily Mail
Banks and other businesses are to be sold access to personal information stored on the Government’s ID cards database.

Ministers want to raise hundreds of millions towards the £540million a year cost of running the controversial scheme. The Government is already facing a backlash over charging people £93 each for an ID card - which will contain 49 different pieces of personal data. Now ministers are planning to charge companies around 60p a time to check details held on the giant “big brother” database. They hope for up to 770million “verifications” each year. The data which banks, financial institutions and others will be allowed to access includes names, addresses, any second homes and National Insurance numbers.

Critics warned it may be the “tip of the iceberg” as the Home Office becomes increasingly desperate to balance the books. The Daily Mail has learned that a top firm of headhunters is already working for the Government, seeking a consultancy expert to market the benefits of the database to the private sector. Firms will be told that using the scheme will cut millions from their annual fraud bills and save them hefty fines for employing illegal immigrants. Officials believe it will be cheaper for companies to confirm identity through the database than by using current methods such as bills and driving licences. The Home Office said businesses would need a person’s consent to check information about them. But there was fury that the Government will be selling information which the public has had to pay to hand over - like it or not. Anybody who buys a passport from 2009 will have no option but to sign up.

Phil Booth, of the NO2ID campaign, said: “The government is trying to pay for its compulsory ID scheme by turning a buck on the very same personal information it forces you to hand over. Charging others to check your personal details is the thin end of a very dangerous wedge. When employees of tens of thousands of officially-accredited companies are allowed to make checks, how much easier will it be for dodgy investigators and identity thieves to find out your information? Under pressure from the Treasury, the Home Office is trying to screw every penny possible out of a scheme that it still hasn’t proved will work.”

Chancellor Gordon Brown supports the ID card scheme but is putting the Home Office under enormous pressure to recoup the extraordinary costs of setting up the huge database. According to the Government’s own estimates, the bill will be £5.4billion over the next ten years. Charging the public £93 for an ID card and biometric passport will go only part of the way to meeting the cost. The remainder will come from charging businesses to access information. Official documents reveal that some 44,000 organisations could be “accredited” to carry out verification checks, either online or over the phone.

They range from Whitehall departments, banks and financial institutions to mobile phone and video rental shops. They will inform database officials of details given by a customer, such as name and address. In return for the fee they will be given a Yes or No answer. Many firms may increase the costs of the goods or services they provide to recoup the outlay. Employers will be expected to pay to check the status of people applying for a job, to establish their identity and whether they are in the UK legally.

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said last night: “This is yet more evidence of a Home Office IT-based project that is spiralling out of control. The Government should ditch this costly plastic poll tax and invest the savings in practical measures to improve our safety, like establishing a dedicated UK border police force.”

Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg said: “Public resistance to the imposition of this utterly unnecessary ID cards scheme will continue to increase as the costs to each and every one of us become clearer.”

Source: London Independent
Paying for goods with notes and coins could be consigned to history within five years, according to the chief executive of Visa Europe.

Peter Ayliffe said that, by 2012, using credit and debit cards should be cheaper and more convenient than cash. Some retailers could soon start surcharging customers if they choose to buy products with cash, because of the greater cost of processing these payments, he warned. Visa Europe briefed the British Retail Consortium last month on new “contactless” cards that can be waved in front of a scanner to make small payments. However, the consortium dismissed this vision and claimed that card processing fees, which regulators are investigating, are still too high. One member of the consurtium said that the estimated “interchange” fee charged to retailers amounts to some 4p for each transaction. Nick Mourant, treasurer at Tesco, said: “There is a duopoly between Mastercard and Visa in the UK. Their setting of fees is anti-competitive.”

Comment: When is the last time you TRUSTED a BANK to tell you that their new services and offerings were going to SAVE money and BE cheaper? They only do this so you no longer have a choice and THEN they raise the cost in gradual steps, just like they have done every time with new services you’re supposed to be excited about. Of course, it is also easier for banks to track your activities, whereabouts, and payments.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald
My HSC English students questioned me during a recent class: “How do we get our own opinions? How do we know which ones are ours? Why do we need them? But people like you won’t be around very long, so what does it matter?”

I spent the next half-hour trying to convince them of the importance of independent thought, using passages from Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four to illustrate the dangers of unthinking compliance.

“Now do you see?” I said. They shrugged. So what? Orwell pitched his horror version of the future five years before any of them were born. History has proved him wrong. He was just being paranoid. That’s the problem with Nineteen Eighty-Four. It specifies a date. Now that date has passed we’re increasingly ignoring its warnings. In the Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith’s colleague boasts about how Newspeak, the language invented by the party to eliminate the possibility of rebellious thought, is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller each year. Next to the vocabulary of the average teenage girl, it already reads like Shakespearean verse. [more…]

Source: Daily Mail
A primary school headmaster has outraged parents after he tricked his pupils into recording their fingerprints by telling them they were playing spies.

Children were persuaded to give their prints after being told by Mark Woodburn that it was ‘just a game…so there’s no need to tell your parents’. Privacy campaigners said the case, involving children as young as three, highlights the extent to which Britain is becoming a surveillance society. It follows the leak of Home Office documents last week which revealed that from 2010, children aged 11 to 16 are to have their fingerprints taken and stored on a secret database when they apply for a passport. Mr Woodburn, head teacher at Ghyllside Primary School in Kendal, Cumbria, devised the spies game when he introduced a new print-recognition library system at the school. After being told it was not necessary to tell their parents, pupils were split up into groups of five or six before being photographed and fingerprinted. The ruse was revealed when one young boy did tell his parents, who then complained. Mr Woodburn says he was unprepared for the strength of feeling among parents about the ‘Big Brother’ system - but admits ‘in hindsight’ at he should have consulted them first.

Comment: We applaud the kid that DID TELL about it. When teachers are being this shady and sneaky, and above all, untrustworthy, they should be told on and it SHOULD be known. The whole “no need to tell your parents” crap is identical to what sicko’s that sexually abuse kids say to them. How utterly disgusting! They should fire that Mr. Woodburn.

Source: UK Daily Mail
Head teachers will today sound a warning over the growing mass of “intrusive” information held about pupils on school databases. They are now expected to collect detailed particulars ranging from heights and weights to family set-ups, religion, medical information and school travel arrangements. They are often required to pass on the information to councils, quangos or central Government. Head teachers’ leader Malcolm Trobe will today urge schools to boycott “unreasonable” requests for information from education bureaucrats. He says the data demands are tying up schools in red tape while also giving parents cause for concern over Big Brother-style intrusion. Primary schools are required to check the height and weight of youngsters when aged five and 11, while most schools - primary and secondary - have to keep records of how pupils travel to school.

Up to 3,500 schools are taking fingerprints from pupils - often without their parents’ permission.

Source: USA Today
Sweden’s government presented a contentious plan Thursday to allow a defense intelligence agency monitor e-mail traffic and phone calls crossing the nation’s borders without a court order.

The Swedish proposal, which needs parliamentary approval, would give the National Defence Radio Establishment the green light to use so-called data mining software to search for sensitive keywords in all phone and e-mail communication passing through cables or wires across the country’s borders. European governments have gradually been expanding their surveillance powers, wiretapping rules and police search powers as part of efforts to unravel terror plots.

But the Swedish proposal is among the most far-reaching when it comes to intercepting e-mail traffic. The Dutch secret service can monitor e-mail in specific cases, but does not have a mandate to conduct blanket monitoring of international traffic. In Britain, e-mails can only be intercepted with a warrant signed by a secretary of state, and the intercepted communications cannot be used in court.

Source: Intelligent Enterprise
In a Q&A with Doug Henschen, Jim Dempsey of The Center for Democracy & Technology discusses corporate data privacy policy discusses the implications of the new big brother society and privacy concerns.

With controversy swirling around ID theft and electronic surveillance by the government, what should corporations do to protect customer data? Jim Dempsey, policy director at The Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT), spells out controversial advice such as “gather less data” and seemingly dire warnings such as “if you gather the data, the government will come calling.” Whether you view CDT as an advocate or an adversary, its voice is being heard on Capitol Hill, so it’s important to be aware of its stance on important corporate data policies and related issues. [more…]

Source: ABC7
Some New York City taxi drivers aren’t thrilled about the high-tech system that will track their every move. In fact, many of them are threatening to strike if they are forced to install an electronic tracking device into their cabs. The new equipment and maintenance could cost each driver up to $5,000.

The New York Taxi Workers Alliance is calling on drivers to show their anger over the technology at a rally outside the Taxi and Limousine Commission headquarters next Tuesday. “It’s an invasion of privacy,” veteran cabbie Alfred Virgil told the Daily News. He added he would refuse to drive, at least temporarily, if a strike was called. TLC Chairman Matthew Daus said the new features will make it much easier for passengers to recover lost property. Giving more payment options will increase ridership and tips, he said.

Source: NY1
Some city cab drivers are trying to put the brakes on new requirements set to go into effect in all city cabs by the end of the year. Members of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance rallied in Lower Manhattan Tuesday afternoon to protest a plan to equip all cabs with a system that will provide television service, credit card processing and GPS tracking. They say the tracking is an invasion of privacy, and they’re not ruling out a strike if it goes forward. “There’s a strong possibility you know that we will have to walk out,” said Bhairavi Desai of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. “What we are asking for is very reasonable. We are saying, respect the privacy of taxi cab drivers just like you would of any other American.”

“I don’t work for UPS or I don’t work for FedEx. I don’t get paid by the hour, you know,” said a driver. “So I think they have no right to be tracking the people.” The alliance is also concerned about the money medallion owners will have to shell out for the new systems and the credit card transaction fees that will come out of drivers’ profits. The Taxi and Limousine Commission says that tracking devices will make it easier for passengers to recover lost items, and that more people will take cabs if they accept credit cards.

Source: NY Press
NYC taxi drivers are threatening to strike if tracking technology is installed in their cabs. A new plan calls to equip all cabs with a system that will provide television service, credit card processing and GPS tracking. The New York Taxi Workers Alliance is calling on drivers to protest the plan, which many deem an invasion of privacy, by rallying outside the Taxi and Limousine Commission headquarters today. The alliance has also taken issue with the cost of the new systems, for which medallion owners would be responsible, and the credit card transaction fees that would come out of their profits. But the Taxi and Limousine Commission claims that tracking devices will make it easier for passengers to retrieve lost items, and that more people will take cabs if they accept credit cards.

Source: Times Online
CHILDREN aged 11 to 16 are to have their fingerprints taken and stored on a secret database, internal Whitehall documents reveal. The leaked Home Office plans show that the mass fingerprinting will start in 2010, with a batch of 295,000 youngsters who apply for passports.

The Home Office expects 545,000 children aged 11 and over to have their prints taken in 2011, with the figure settling at an annual 495,000 from 2014. Their fingerprints will be held on a database also used by the Immigration and Nationality Directorate to store the fingerprints of hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers. The plans are outlined in a series of “restricted” documents circulating among officials in the Identity and Passport Service. They form part of the programme for the introduction of new biometric passports and ID cards.

Opposition politicians and privacy campaigners warn that the plans show ministers are turning Britain into a “surveillance society”. David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said: “This borders on the sinister and it shows the government is trying to end the presumption of innocence. With the fingerprinting of all our children, this government is clearly determined to enforce major changes in the relationship between the citizen and the state in a way never seen before.”

Under the new passport and ID scheme, everyone over 16 who applies for a passport will have their details — including fingerprints and eye or facial scans — added to the National Identity Register from next year. From October 2009, ID cards will be issued alongside new passports. Initially these will not be mandatory, but Tony Blair has said that if Labour is reelected it will make them compulsory, a process that the documents predict will take just over a decade. Children under 16 will not be part of the ID card scheme. But the documents show that from 2010 they will still have to be fingerprinted for a new passport.

The prints will initially be stored on the directorate’s database. Once children reach 16 their fingerprints and other personal information will be passed for storage on the register, along with those of nearly 50m adults. Children applying for passports will have to travel up to 80 miles to special Home Office screening centres to have their fingerprints taken.

The documents show that ID cards will not be made compulsory for more than a decade, under present plans. “Compulsion will be triggered once 80% take-up is achieved in [the first quarter of] 2019,” they state. “It is assumed that, following compulsion, a 100% registration will be achieved two years later.” The prime minister has hailed the ID cards scheme as the centrepiece of efforts to combat terrorism and illegal immigration, as well as identity theft and benefit fraud. But opponents dismiss it as a “Big Brother” scheme that is too expensive, poorly planned and unlikely to function efficiently.