NO2ID Press Release RSS

Home Office buries bad news, weird news and a tactical retreat for ID cards

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 00:00:01 GMT

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.'

-ENDS-

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

Campaigners tell government: "You can't protect it. So don't collect it."

Sun, 02 Nov 2008 00:00:01 GMT

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."

-ENDS-

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

Dated data protection won't touch new privacy crisis

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 00:00:01 GMT

Reacting to Information Commissioner Richard Thomas�s 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.'

-ENDS-

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

NO2ID: Halt biometric bullying by roadside fingerprinting

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 00:00:01 GMT

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

DPP vindicates privacy campaigners - on the paranoia of the stalker state

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 00:00:01 GMT

The concerns of privacy campaign NO2ID [1] are vindicated by the statement of the outgoing head of the CPS who has slammed the paranoia and fear driving the government's attempts to create a database-powered surveillance state. NO2ID welcomes and supports his remarks as just the latest warning from a high profile figure repudiating the government's totalitarian approach [2].

The Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir Ken Macdonald, attacked the "paraphernalia of paranoia" of an increasingly security-obsessed government that seeks to claim greater and greater powers of surveillance. His implied targets included the National Identity Scheme, the proposed telecommunications database in the Communications Data Bill, 48 days detention and other planks of government policy [3].

Politicians, he warned, should �take very great care to imagine the world we are creating before we build it. We might end up living with something we can't bear."

After Sir Ken's appearance on Channel 4 News (Monday, 20/10/08) Guy Herbert, NO2ID General Secretary, agreed with his sentiments but said:

"Sir Ken is too generous by half. His calls for balance, vigilance and debate are mistaken in the face of a government that looks for any possible opportunity to collect information on the citizen, then suggests anyone who disgrees is somehow an accessory to terrorism, or paranoid."

"Privacy campaigners want to live in a trusting society with fair and controlled investigative powers. We are the ones asking for evidence and rationality. It is the stalker state - driven to try and watch everyone, everywhere, all the time - that is addled by fear and paranoia."

-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 also, for example the remarks of Dame Stella Rimmington, "Response to 9-11 was huge over-reaction' Guardian interview, 18 October 2008

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/oct/18/stella-rimington-9-11-mi5

3) CPS Lecture - "Coming out of the Shadows" 20 Oct 2008

http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/nationalnews/coming_out_of_the_shadows.html

See also, "Centuries of British freedoms being 'broken' by security state, says Sir Ken Macdonald" - Telegraph, 20/10/08. Also Channel 4 News, same date.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/3230452/Centuries-of-British-freedoms-being-broken-by-security-state-says-Sir-Ken-Macdonald.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