Back in the days when we innocently thought that a website like this could actually make a difference, we wrote ...
So let's get this straight.
I have a passport. I have a birth certificate. I have a marriage certificate. I have a medical card with my social security number on it. I have a driving licence, an MOT certificate and a Certificate of Insurance. I have a television licence. I have several credit cards. I own a house and the local authority knows where I live because they keep telling me to cut my hedge (actually, they keep telling me to cut next door's hedge, but that's another story). I have a library card. I get regular utilities bills. I have an email address. When my picture is taken by one of these cute yellow cameras at the side of the road, the DVLA in Swansea knows exactly who I am and can have Mr.Plod waiting on my front door mat before I get home. I'm on the electoral roll, and actually have a vote for all the good it's ever done. I pay my taxes, and have had a job for most of my life so have also been paying my National Insurance contributions. I've been checked by the Criminal Records Bureau so I can work with children.
I went into a shop recently to buy a new computer. The young assistant asked my name, typed it into his computer and then told me where I live and what my telephone number is. He then spent the rest of the interview calling me by my Christian name, though I didn't know him from Adam. I had a telephone call the other day from a man in India who even knew my date of birth.
I am so deeply woven into the fabric of our society that I couldn't hide if I wanted to.
Yet now the government want me to have an Identity Card. Why? They already know who I am, where I live, when I was born, who I'm married to, who my children are, what my qualifications and employment history are, whether I have any convictions for speeding (I have) or for offences against children (I haven't), and probably the name of my cat and whether I pick my nose with the right forefinger or the left. So why do they need to issue me with an Identity Card?
To combat terrorism? Yes, I can quite see that any responsible citizen with an Identity Card would think twice about letting loose with a Kalashnikov in IKEA one Saturday morning. But your bona fide terrorist with a bomb strapped under his parka - what's he supposed to think? "Oi, wait a moment, I don't have an Identity Card. I'd better not do this"?
Perhaps it's to ensure that only people who legally live in this country can get the dole or go to hospital or draw their old age pension? But they already know all this stuff about me. They know, if they can be bothered to check their computer like the lad in PCWorld, that I've paid so much National Insurance and Income Tax over the years that I practically own the bloody National Health Service. Of course, if there's an asylum-seeking illegal immigrant terrorist who looks exactly like me, lives at the same address and happens to have laid his hands on my passport, birth certificate, marriage certificate, medical card, social security number, driving licence, MOT certificate, Certificate of Insurance, television licence, credit cards, library card, utilities bills, email address, Voter's Card, wife, cat and hedge, I can see where an Identity Card might be quite useful.
In fact, we liked these paragraphs so much that we've quoted them again more recently, and now here we are quoting them again. What made us do so this time is that in a cogent article in the Daily Mail (yes, the Daily Mail does occasionally print cogent articles written by proper journalists) Suzanne Moore recently wrote something very similar ...
If the guy who invented DNA fingerprinting is worried, we should all be
How much information does the State need to have about me that I have not freely volunteered? I’d say it already knows a lot more than it needs to. But then so does Tesco.
I have been photographed, fingerprinted and asked all sorts of odd questions without ever having been arrested – though it’s come close. I have been CRB-checked by my child’s school. My blood was routinely tested for HIV and rubella when I was pregnant. The one little bit of me that they don’t have is my DNA. But surely it’s only a matter of time.
Why should I, an innocent citizen, object to the State having my precious DNA on its database? What have I to fear? Am I ‘against justice’, as Harriet Harman ludicrously accused anyone with doubts about a centralised DNA database of being?
If the police take a DNA sample, even if one is not charged, it can be kept up to 12 years. This doesn’t happen in other countries, not even Scotland. There, DNA can be taken only if you are arrested. If you are cleared, the profile is immediately destroyed unless you have been cleared of a violent or sexual offence – in which case the sample can be kept for up to five years.
What Harman is arguing for already contravenes EU legislation and we will simply end up with more test cases in the European courts. This, alongside the unfeasibly daft voluntary ID card scheme being pushed on the poor people of Manchester by Jacqui Smith, is yet more evidence that Government increasingly regards most of us as potential criminals rather than citizens who need serving.
It certainly shows there is a lot of money to be made by IT firms from keeping us under surveillance from birth till death – and probably beyond. ID cards may cost £5.3billion and I’ve yet to meet a sentient being who wants one.
DNA, though, because the very mention of it sends people into some CSI or Jeremy Kyle world of absolute proof, is mistakenly seen as the answer to unsolvable crimes. It has been of use, of course. Last year the Home Office claimed it helped in the cases of 83 killings and 184 rapes. Yet seasoned campaigners will tell you that our appallingly low rate of conviction for rape is not due simply to lack of DNA evidence but also to a need to change jurors’ attitudes to the crime itself.
Meanwhile, the European Court of Human Rights says that some 850,000 DNA profiles of innocent people should be removed from our database.
Part of the problem is that most of us don’t actually understand much about DNA or databases. We know when public-sector ones go wrong, such as when a copy of the details of the entire child benefit system was lost. So maybe we should listen to Sir Alec Jeffreys, the guy who invented DNA fingerprinting. He is now concerned that this system is being used to cast a shadow of criminality over people who have committed no crime.
The Rowntree Trust, which has published a report on the ‘Database State’, concluded, controversially, that a quarter of the 46 public-sector databases it studied were actually illegal. The level of intrusion breaks all kinds of rulings yet still most of us remain in the dark until information is leaked or stolen. As the man who set up the NHS database said: ‘You cannot stop the wicked doing wicked things.’
(Which reminds us of that idiot Phil Woolarse talking recently about immigration, saying "I can't let the nice people in and keep that nasty ones out". WHY NOT, you prat? To the rest of us this seems like an entirely sensible way of doing things!)
David Shutt, one of the authors of the Rowntree report, asks what kind of intrusion is acceptable ‘proportionate and necessary in a democratic society’. And that is the issue. The public sector spends £16billion a year on IT. We have a right to ask if these databases are effective, private, legal and worth it. Apparently, only 30 per cent of these projects succeed. It is strange that while we don’t trust the Government to get much right, they are purchasing more information systems that will treat us as suspects rather than citizens. It is as if the very DNA of this Government is to invade every part of our lives.
Anyone would think they are afraid of us.
In case you missed it, here is the interview in which Home Office minister Vernon Coaker explained that if you've been arrested and found innocent, or not even charged, you're probably a criminal anyway and need to be treated as such.
Meanwhile the excellent No2ID Campaign report that ...
The Home Office is in a whirl of activity on the database state. But it isn't actually doing anything. If you look carefully you can see that it is scrambling to secure its position, covered by a lot of noise about "change".
On ID cards - the announcement of 'trials' in Manchester is less than it seems. There is not yet a scheme nor even a specification. Retail chains who might take fingerprints are "in talks" with government, but it would be commercial madness for them to buy equipment for an undersigned scheme that might be cancelled in a year. Those who pre-register for the scheme are only serving to provide a number that some future Home Office minister can claim shows "the public want ID cards". The razzamatazz around their opportunity is neatly timed to distract attention from the latest cost reports. No real change. But no change of direction either.
On the collection of communications data - though headlines have been grabbed by "cancelling" a super-database of all telephone calls, texts, emails and web-browsing, the collection and searching of the information is still intended. And the information will still be accessible to dozens of organisations without a warrant. No change.
On the DNA database in England and Wales, you will have read stories such as "Police to destroy DNA profiles of 800,000 innocent" (Guardian). Only they won't. Not immediately. Let alone comply with the spirit of the law, or match the actual law in Scotland. The Home Office is merely consulting on a proposal that, at some indefinite point in the future it might (a) massively add to the database by sampling all convicts however long ago their convictions, and (b) remove the DNA profiles of those who are not convicted between 6 and 12 years after they are arrested -- the period depending on what they are innocent of. On that basis the database will continue to grow very fast for years to come. No change.
Rest assured NO2ID will continue to fight the database state. No change.
Government dragging feet over DNA Database - time for a consultation!
Back in December the government was defeated in a case at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) over the retention of DNA samples for those who have not committed an offence. Since then there has been no change to the UK law - whilst ministers "consider the judgment". Now the Home Office is launching a public consultation 'Keeping the right people on the DNA database' which includes proposals to automatically delete profiles of those arrested but not convicted of serious violent or sexual crimes after 12 years and automatically delete profiles of those arrested but not convicted of all other crimes after six years. Dr Helen Wallace, Director of GeneWatch said: "This is a long time for innocent people to wait to have their records wiped, DNA profiles can be used to track an individual or their relatives. Where are the weighty reasons that the European Court demanded to justify retention of this data?" GeneWatch also point out that the number of crimes detected using DNA has not increased despite the database more than doubling in size. As we go to press further details of the consultation are not yet available.
Reclaim Your DNA website launched
As the government ums and ahs over the retention of innocent people's DNA, civil liberties groups including GeneWatch and NO2ID have come together to set up a new website 'Reclaim Your DNA' to help people ask to have their DNA removed from the National DNA database. Up to a million innocent people who have been arrested in England, Wales or Northern Ireland have had their DNA retained. This includes many children, who can be arrested from the age of ten. The site points out: "The most important thing to do first is to write a letter to the police" and the site can even generate a letter for you - find it here.
Blunkett and the ID Card U-Turn that wasn't a U-Turn
Last week the mainstream media reported a change of heart by father of the ID card scheme David Blunkett following a speech at the InfoSec security conference. Apparently Blunkett wanted ID cards to be scrapped, he'd seen the error of his ways and the project would surely now crumble. However in a letter to the Daily Telegraph Blunkett pointed out: "I am entirely committed to the whole programme and, specifically, the database". In fact Blunkett only suggested that the plastic card could be dropped and the passport used instead - but not the usual passport. Blunkett said: "Most people already have a passport but they might want something more convenient to carry around than the current passport and may be able to have it as a piece of plastic for an extra cost." So just to be clear - Blunkett's U-turn was to back the National Identity Register, drop the plastic card and replace it with ... er ... a plastic card.
Latest ID scheme cost report shows cost increase
The UK Identity and Passport Service (UKIP) has published its latest ten-year cost estimate of the National Identity Scheme. The report which specifically excludes costs to business, citizens and any part of government other than the Home Office -- shows a £160 million increase in 6 months. The report also completely ignores the £250 million already spent on the scheme. The report even tries to re-brand the National Identity Scheme as the 'National Identity Service' in an attempt to suggest that there are benefits to signing up when in fact anyone who registers will be signing away their privacy for life and giving the government a blank cheque.
Read the report here.
(Anyone else find it rather odd that UKIP means "UK Identity and Passport Service" when to most of us it actually signifies a political party? Oh well, just me, then)
I you're feeling particularly masochistic, the government's own propaganda-sheet about databases is here.
If you want to respond to the consultation (that is, if you are so foolish as to believe that what you think can possibly make the slightest difference to Jacqboots Schmidt and her cohorts) you can send an email here, or send your response by post to ...
Nigel Burrowes
Communications Data Consultation
Room P.5.37
Home Office
2 Marsham Street
London SW1P 4DF
This consultation ends on 20 July 2009. After that, the government will do what it bloody-well likes.
either on this site or on the World Wide Web.
Copyright © 2009 The GOS