Data security and the UK census

The claim:

'Census data security measures

Data security and confidentiality is a top priority for the census. In addition to the strong protection provided by the law, ONS has put in place stringent additional safeguards.

All census employees and contractors working on the census sign a declaration of confidentiality to guarantee their understanding and compliance with the law which makes unauthorised disclosure of personal census data an imprisonable offence.

All staff who have access to the full census data set in the operational data centre will work for ONS.

All staff processing any personal census data will be security cleared to the UK Baseline Standard. This requirement has also been extended to all employees of the supplier and their sub-contractors handling any personal Census data.

Staff with access to the full census data set or substantial parts of it will have security clearance to handle material classified as ‘Secret’.

Underlying security requirements for census data are based upon UK Government Security Guidelines issued by the Cabinet Office and by Communications – Electronic Security Group.

Census data is classified as restricted under the scheme of classification of government information. For more details see the link to Cabinet Office website pdf of classifications.

This classification brings a whole set of standards and safeguards which have been put in place to ensure that the data remains secure. This includes control of physical access to any site or room where the data is kept, secure control of access to IT hardware and of course IT systems.

ONS will control system access rights to all systems and data.

All security measures cover the completed questionnaires, the electronic data set, the website, the archive image system and the communications links relating to any of these items.

All of the electronic communications links over which personal census information will be routed, will be encrypted (scrambled) to the levels recommended by the Government Security Services.

The census security programme is being managed to the framework of ISO27001 - the internationally recognised Information Security Management Standard.

ONS will commission an independent review of systems and procedures covering both its own systems and those of all contractors. These reviews will include systematic checks during the operations. The independent security auditors will be accredited by the government security services to carry out these reviews.

Use of census data and data confidentiality

We have secure systems in which to hold data, with stringent controls and procedures in place. We do not store any financial details, and names and addresses are removed from the data sources used for the day to day production of statistical tables.

The information in questionnaires is used only for census related publications and analyses published for geographic areas. These outputs do not attribute any of the statistics back to specific individuals.

Once the analyses are complete and the information is published, archived copies of the forms will be securely filed away and the personal details they contain will not be released for another 100 years.

All handling and storage of data complies with the Data Protection Act.
Census data and the US Patriot Act

Concerns expressed about the possibility of the US Patriot Act being used by US intelligence services have been addressed by a number of additional contractual and operational safeguards. These arrangements have been put in place to ensure to that US authorities are unable to access census data.

Existing law already prevents the disclosure of census data – it is a criminal offence to disclose personal census data and is punishable by a fine and/or up to two years in prison.

All census data is owned by ONS and all of the legal undertakings of confidentiality of personal Census information will apply to both ONS and any contractors.

All census employees and contractors working on the census sign a declaration of confidentiality to guarantee their understanding and compliance with the law.

All staff who have access to the full census data set in the operational data centre will work for ONS.

Contractual arrangements ensure that only sub-contractors registered and based in the UK and either UK or EU owned will have access to any personal census data.

Staff with access to the full census data set or substantial parts of it will have security clearance to handle material classified as ‘Secret’ under the UK Government’s classifications.

The prime contractor is Lockheed Martin UK Ltd. Additional specialist services will be provided by Cable & Wireless, Logica, UK Data Capture, bss, Steria, Polestar, Oracle and Royal Mail. Lockheed Martin UK will design the processing systems for ONS using its expertise and past experience. The day to day running of operational services will be provided by the consortium of specialist service providers. All of these specialist subcontractors are registered and owned in the UK or elsewhere in the EU.

This contractual structure means that no US companies will have any access to any personal census data.

No Lockheed Martin staff (from either the US parent or UK company) will have access to any personal census data.

All data will be processed in the UK and remain in the UK.'

The reality (?):
This morning I am hearing claims that the hacking group LulzSec say that they have obtained a copy of the entire 2011 Census.



My conclusion:
If true this is more than a little disturbing. Will I have a claim against the Office For National Statistics under Information Commissioner legislation?


Oddly I didn't want to fill in the Census but Mrs NotaSheep got jittery at all the reminders and said that we must do it...

The Labour party and web security

The Register reports a very basic security problem identified an insecure registration problem on the Labour party website:

'Surfers who register through the site http://members.labour.org.uk were invited to confirm their membership, and activate their account, by clicking on the link in an email sent to a specified account.

The email follows the form http://members.labour.org.uk/man-auth/ActivationSent/10000XXXXX

A Reg reader who registered through the site realised that the number at the end of this URL is probably sequential, a unique id which refers to the account just registered. Sure enough, just changing the ID in the URL to a lower number led to the presentation of an email address of another registrant ...

"This is unbelievably poor and sloppy coding," our anonymous informant told El Reg "Obviously you could use this flaw to extract a whole pile of email addresses. Spammers would love it. Guess there are also data protection issues because this breaks their own privacy policy."

Rik Ferguson, a security consultant at Trend Micro, helped El Reg confirm the flaw, which he explained had resulted from a failure to follow established best practice in website design.'

Not very impressive especially from the same party that assured us whilst they were in office that our data would always be secure in one of the myriad of databases they wanted to set-up.

CCTV Britain

More at Big Brother Watch

ID cards, still a live issue

I see that:

"Residents in Manchester will become the first people in Britain to be able to apply for ID cards.

They can now directly apply to attend appointments from November 30 to have their photograph and fingerprints taken for the £30 cards at Manchester's passport office.

Junior Home Office Minister Meg Hillier said the cards would be particularly useful for students and young people as they would "save the cost and hassle" of getting into clubs and bars.

Anyone over 16 in the city with a UK passport can apply for a card.

Ms Hillier told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Really for a lot of people it's a day-to-day convenience thing.

"For a lot of young people ... they often take their passports to prove their identity in nightclubs and bars and the Passport Service sweeps these up every week. So for a lot of people it'll save the cost and hassle of taking your passport, risking losing it and instead you've got this very convenient little credit-sized card. I've got one and it's very useful.""

Do read the whole piece and wonder if anyone will fall for the crap that Labour ministers still insist on spouting about the ID card scheme. Remember that Gordon Brown's announcement to the Labour Conference that "in the next Parliament there will be no compulsory ID cards for British citizens" was the same misleading line that ministers have been spewing for years. The ID card scheme was designed so as to force people to "volunteer" for a system that they can never then leave. Be under no illusions that before long you will be forced to register for an ID card when you apply for a passport or, before too long, for any officially-designated document.

The National Identity Register is still a target of the Labour government, a government that will not be happy until we are all traceable 24 hours a day. Our every move, our every action, our every piece of correspondence and interaction recorded, stored and retrievable by the State and its functionaries. The Stasi would have loved to have had just 10% of the information that our new rulers will have about each and every one of us.

"Human rights" only for the guilty not for the innocent in Labour Britain

This Guardian article has got me really angry. I appears that:

"Chief constables across England and Wales have been told to ignore a landmark ruling by the European court of human rights and carry on adding the DNA profiles of tens of thousands of innocent people to a national DNA database.

Senior police officers have also been "strongly advised" that it is "vitally important" that they resist individual requests based on the Strasbourg ruling to remove DNA profiles from the national database in cases such as wrongful arrest, mistaken identity, or where no crime has been committed.

European human rights judges ruled last December in the S and Marper case that the blanket and indiscriminate retention of the DNA profiles and fingerprints of 850,000 people arrested but never convicted of any offence amounts to an unlawful breach of their rights.

...

The advice to senior officers comes in a letter from the Association of Chief Police Officers criminal records office. The letter, seen by the Guardian, tells chief constables that new Home Office guidelines following the ruling in the case of S and Marper are not expected to take effect until 2010.

"Until that time, the current retention policy on fingerprints and DNA remains unchanged," it says. "Individuals who consider they fall within the ruling in the S and Marper case should await the full response to the ruling by the government prior to seeking advice and/or action from the police service in order to address their personal issue on the matter.

"Acpo strongly advise that decisions to remove records should not be based on [the government's] proposed changes. It is therefore vitally important that any applications for removals of records should be considered against current legislation."

Nice isn't it, every criminal and asylum seeker seems to have their human rights protected but not innocent Brits.

The trouble is that the concept of freedom in the UK has been eroded so much by this most vile Labour government and their increasingly politicised police force that the freedom of the citizen is illusory. As I have said before, this Labour government and their putative masters in the EU want control and what better way to control us than to have our most basic details "on file" to do with as they will. Do you seriously believe that this government or its agents would not plant DNA of people they want to be "put away" so as to be able to to rid themselves of troublesome priests and bloggers. As George Orwell wrote in 1984, a book that this Labour government seem to have taken as a template rather than a warning,

"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever."

Let's face facts that boot will be stamping on our collective faces until we somehow show some gumption and force change.

And to all those useful idiots who whine "if you've got nothing to hide then you've got nothing to fear", I remind you of Pastor Martin Niemöller's words:

"First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me."

They will come for us all eventually, so it is time to stand up now.

The rise of the UK's very own Stasi State

The news that:

"A growing army of private security guards and town hall snoopers with sweeping police-style powers is being quietly established, the Daily Mail can reveal.

Under a Home Office-run scheme, people such as park wardens, dog wardens, car park attendants and shopping centre guards receive the powers if they undergo training, and pay a small fee to their local police force.

Their powers include issuing £60 fines for truancy and dropping litter, and being able to demand a person's name and address on the street.

Under the Community Safety Accreditation Scheme, the number of civilians wearing a special badge, and a uniform approved by the local chief constable, has rocketed by almost 30 per cent in a year and there are now 1,406.

Critics claim Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is quietly seeking to create a third-tier within the 'policing family', with even less training and accountability than the controversial Police Community Support Officers. "

What is Labour's end game? A CCTV camera in every room of every house? Each citizen implanted with a GPS tracking device? Checkpoints every few hundred yard metres where citizens' ID can be checked and DNA samples taken? This Labour government really scare me, I think they are capable of almost anything as they try to keep their hands on power. The idea that a UK Government might postpone a General Election would have seemed incredible 10 years ago, now it is common currency.

We are all guilty, it's up to the Labour Government to decide when to arrest us

The news that Jacqui Smith will push through Parliament without a vote the new legislation on keeping innocent people's details on the DNA database, does not surprise me. This Labour government has shown time and time again that its instincts are totalitarian and anti-freedom. What shocks me is the lack of complaint from the opposition.

The thirty eighth weekly "NO shit, Sherlock" award

This week's award goes to the Cambridge University academic David Farrington for the Campbell Collaboration study group, funded by the Home Office, which has concluded that as The daily Mail puts it:

"The millions of CCTV cameras on Britain's streets have done virtually nothing to cut crime... Cameras in town centres, housing estates and on public transport 'did not have a significant effect'"

"No shit, Sherlock"

Database Britain (part xx)

The totalitarian instincts of this most vile Labour government seem to know no bounds. The latest revelation is that:

"Personal data gathered for the controversial ID cards scheme will be made available to the taxman.

HM Revenue and Customs officials will be able to trawl through a person's financial transactions for hints of any undeclared earnings or bank accounts.

...

The powers that give 'Commissioners for Revenue and Customs' access to the ID cards audit log were buried away in orders laid before Parliament earlier this week - at the same time as the full extent of the expenses scandal was emerging.

The log records each time a card has been used to verify a person's identity when they make a big value purchase, open a bank account or take out a mortgage.

If a large number of verifications for big items are recorded, it could signal to the taxman a person earns more money than they declared. Undeclared second homes could also lead to higher tax payments. "

As usual it is No2ID that cut to the heart of the matter:

"Phil Booth, of the NO2ID campaign, said: 'The big lie of the ID scheme is that it's for our benefit - the detail shows it's all about giving the bureaucrats and bean-counters more control.' "

Too little, too late

The latest in a long line of authoritarian Home Secretaries, Jacqui Smith, has decided to loosen up a little on the restrictive cloak that covers the UK. The BBC faithfully report their master's voice and inform us that:

"Councils in England and Wales should not use surveillance powers for minor offences such as allowing dogs to foul pavements, the home secretary has said.

Jacqui Smith was speaking as the Home Office launched a review of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.

The act allows the use of methods such as hidden cameras to detect crimes such as benefit fraud but councils have been accused of targeting minor offences.

The Tories and Lib Dems say Ripa is a "snoopers' charter" which needs reform. "

Too little, too late Jacqui and the same goes for your predecessors who have turned a once free Country into a database state where the public are under surveillance more than they would be in any other Country but where crime keeps rising - well done this Labour government, you have proved to be even more inept than I thought possible.

What are they recording?

There seems to be some confusion as to whether ISPs are recording all web page accesses for possible government (and third party interrogation) or not. This confusion certainly existed at the BBC yesterday as the article devoted to this story went through quite a few changes before this sentence was added at 16:02:52:

"Please note, in an earlier version of this story we incorrectly stated that ISPs would be storing details of website visits. This is not the case. "

So what, definitively, is the case?

Sheer Labour government genius

This Labour government's passion for regulation, control and form-filling seems to have no end. In addition to the new internet access recording the Labour government have decided that when the property market is collapsing they should add some more bureaucracy to it. From today the Home Information Pack (HIP) gets more onerous, thanks to Grant Shapps, the shadow Hosuing Minister we know that the new rules mean:

"* New delays if you sell your home. The Government has cancelled the 'first day marketing' provision that allowed sellers to market their home if a HIP has been ordered but not yet been completed.
* New untrustworthy Property Information Questionnaires. All Packs must have a new questionnaire completed by the seller - but the buyer cannot be sure the answers are accurate on issues like past dry rot or damp, insurance claims and the history of flooding.
* Sellers sued for honest mistakes by the buyer: Disputes about the content of Property Information Questionnaires will end up in the courts, making buying and selling even more of a legal minefield.
* Heavy-handed town hall fines: Town halls have been instructed to "identify specific cases of non-compliance and enforce the requirements" - and start fining homeowners £200 a time if they do not follow the new rules."

This Labour government just "doesn't get it" and will regulate the Country into inactivity if it is not stopped and stopped soon.

Database Britain

This Labour government do seem to have a grasp of literary history, the introduction of their latest surveillance database comes on the 6th of April 2009. The novel 1984, which this Labour government seems to have taken as an instruction manual rather than a warning, starts on 4 April 1984: "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen".


The end of the era of internet freedom came this morning as the EU and this Labour government's plan to monitor their citizens' every move takes another step closer to completion. From this morning all internet activity by every internet connection must be stored for one year by the ISP, this includes email traffic, visits to web sites and telephone calls made over the internet. Of course this information will be accessible by police and the security services so as to combat crime and terrorism. Of course in reality the information will be accessed by many public bodies and quangos, including local councils, who will thus be able investigate any number of minor misdemeanours or just look for evidence to embarrass difficult or undesirable persons.

The UK's Labour government who seem to have an insatiable desire to monitor and control every aspect of their citizens' lives was the prime mover for this EU-wide system of recording and it is to the UK's Home Office that we must turn for the justifications:

"It is the Government's priority to protect public safety and national security. That is why we are completing the implementation of this directive, which will bring the UK in line with our European counterparts."

"Without communications data, resolving crimes such as the Rhys Jones murder would be very difficult if not impossible."

And then the excuse that has more holes in it than a piece of Swiss cheese:

"Access to communications data is governed by Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act which ensures that effective safeguards are in place and that the data can only be accessed when it is necessary and proportionate to do so," he said. "

We all know how well the RIPA safeguards have worked to date, just look through the cases that I and other bloggers have reported and see councils using the Act to fight littering and to check whether parents are abusing school catchment area rules. Now councils and the government will have access to almost unthinkable levels of personal data without any real safeguards.


This database is not an isolated example of Labour implemented state surveillance, here's a few examples that I could think of, please feel free to add your own in the comments:
1. DNA Database - 3 million entries so far of anyone who is arrested, even if never charged let alone found guilty. The data stays on the database forever as it is virtually impossible to have it removed.

2. Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) systems record the movements of millions of vehicles every day and are in the process of being linked to a central database to record every movement you make in your vehicle.

3. Oyster Cards - If you register your Oyster Card, currently still optional, then every journey you take is recorded and stored.

4. Spy in the sky - The introduction of black box type equipment in every car is set for 2013, so every vehicle journey would be monitored foot by foot for speed limit infractions or in the future unauthorised journeys by carbon criminals

5. Every journey outside of the UK now has to be logged in advance along with personal data. How long before this is used to restrict foreign travel by "carbon criminals" or persons suspected of taking currency out of the Peoples State of the EU?

6. ID cards - "papers please"

7. NHS database - It is rumoured that MI5 already have access to the patients records stored on this database; who else might have access soon?

8. Galileo European tracking - the EU's rival to GPS is an unnecessary and expensive system unless the rumours that the Galileo chip will be placed in every new mobile are true. In which case if you own a mobile telephone your every movement will be tracked and recorded, and if you don't own a mobile telephone that will look suspicious.


Welcome to the sort of State surveillance that the Stasi could only have dreamt of. From today the State and its subsidiary vectors of control can monitor every web site you visit, every telephone call you make over the internet and every email you send or receive.

What of the future? I blogged some time ago about the state information televisions in public places ahead of the 2012 Olympics that are likely to become permanent fixtures. How long before CCTV cameras are plentiful enough that they are monitoring every street, to fight crime and terrorism, one every 100 metres... 50 metres... one per house...

Monitoring us every turn of the wheel

I saw this Daily Mail article and had to take a couple of days before commenting. The report claims that:

"Drivers face having their every move tracked by a 'spy in the car' black box.

The system will constantly check a vehicle's speed - making cameras redundant - and allow for pay-as-you-go tolls.

The £36million EU project is partly funded by the UK Government and backed by car makers and the telecoms industry.

It will be unveiled later this year with a view to its integration into future cars. Manufacturers suggest this could be as early as 2013.

Vehicles fitted with the system will emit a constant 'heartbeat' pulse revealing their location, speed and direction of travel. "

Yes they want every car in the EU to be tracked 24/7 so enabling the EU (for by 2013 the EU will be the de facto government of Europe) to charge per kilometre driven and to fine anyone who drives 1kmph over the speed limit or maybe who exceeds their Carbon allowance by driving too far in any particular week.

Of course the EU have their justifications ready and they are the justifications used every time another liberty or freedom is taken from us:

"EU officials believe the technology will significantly reduce road accidents, congestion and carbon emissions. "

The totalitarians just don't get it do they? And we don't believe them when they make claims like this:

"The Department for Transport said there were no plans to make the system mandatory in new cars. Its introduction will be on a voluntary basis, according to Paul Kompfner, manager of the Cooperative-Vehicle-Infrastructure Systems project.

The next line is even more sinister;

"He added: 'A traffic controller will know where all vehicles are and even where they are headed. "

How will they know where they are headed? Will we have to apply for permission before starting any journey? Will we need to apply 24 hours in advance and give personal details and reasons for each journey. Is this to be an extension to the recently announced and soon to be implemented foreign travel database?


We need to get rid of this fascistic Labour government, leave the EU and start a return to decent liberal values in the UK but I fear it may be too late.

They want to know everything that we do...

All ISPs across the EU are from today forced to store data on their customers for up to one year under the EU Data Retention Directive. This data will include names, dates of birth, billing addresses and credit-card information, as well as IP addresses and session data. The EU and its constituent governments would probably claim that the police and intelligence agencies need this data to fight terrorism and serious crime. Of course in reality the information will probably be used to criminalise or embarrass those who the EU and constituent governments want to target.

The Labour government want to track our every movement and record them for 10 years

This increasingly totalitarian Labour government is introducing yet another database to record their subjects movements. The Telegraph report that:

"The travel plans and personal details of every holidaymaker, business traveller and day-tripper who leaves Britain are to be tracked by the Government... Anyone departing the UK by land, sea or air will have their trip recorded and stored on a database for a decade.

Passengers leaving every international sea port, station or airport will have to supply detailed personal information as well as their travel plans. So-called "booze cruisers" who cross the Channel for a couple of hours to stock up on wine, beer and cigarettes will be subject to the rules.

Anyone departing the UK by land, sea or air will have their trip recorded and stored on a database for a decade."

The news that really got me riled this morning was this:

"(the)rules which will require the provision of travellers' personal information such as passport and credit card details, home and email addresses and exact travel plans"

Some thoughts: When we go away I tell hardly anyone; the neighbours who keep an eye on the house, parents and a few clients, we do not advertise the fact that we are going away. We do not put our home address on our luggage labels, just surname and a mobile phone number. Now I will be required to enter all this information (and more) online into a "secure" Government database, that seems a bright move. Who will have access to this database? No really who will have access to it? With this Labour governments' record on data security I have major doubts as to its access security. Why should I put my house and possessions at risk because this Labour government have finally realised that they have no border controls worth speaking of.

Why do the Labour government want my credit card details? Do they only want the details of the card we paid for the holiday with or all of our credit cards? Do they want all Debit Card details as well? Do they also require the PINs for each of these cards? How about my online banking account details and passcodes?

Why do they need my email address? Which email address do they want? Do they want the one that I booked the holiday under, not my main one as I don't want to be spammed? Do they want every email address I have? Will they also want SMTP/POP3 passwords so they can check my emails?

The Labour government want to have details of our exact travel plans? What if we don't have "exact" travel plans? What if we have booked a flight to Pisa and a hire-car for two weeks and plan to meander through Tuscany and Umbria for two weeks, staying wherever takes our fancy? Will we not be allowed to go unless we have a booking for every night of the holiday? Will we be allowed to leave the Country but have to amend our filed holiday plans every day as our plans change? What if we have booked to stay in a particular hotel or villa and then find that it is horrible and so move to another hotel or villa, will this not be allowed or will we have to ask permission from the Labour government before we make such changes to our filed itinerary? What if our holiday plans change but we cannot alter our filed itinerary as there is no internet access where we are staying? What if the airline suffers a delay that means we have to spend a night in a transit hotel, will that need logging?


Some more thoughts: This Labour government has a history of passing legislation purportedly for one reason but leaving the system open to additional functionality, so what mission-creep could be added to this one? It would make a fine starting point for a travel rationing system; if they are logging all travel plans, then how long before you get the message "I am sorry but you have exceeded your travel miles ration, you do not have permission to travel unless you pay an "eco-surcharge" - click "OK" and we will deduct the charge from the credit card details that we store for you". The system would also make a nice research tool for HM Revenue and Customs - Mr Jones, we note that you have had five holidays to Florida over the last three years and always stay at the same holiday villa. How can you afford such a holiday on the income you have declared on your tax returns? Do you have any financial interest in this villa?


This Labour government database is being introduced under the pretext of fighting terrorism and crime, they tend to be, but its real purpose will only be seen some time down the road. I think it was Cecil Rhodes who said that "To be born English is to have won first prize in the lottery of life." I don't think that many of us would agree with that any more. The English are over-taxed, over-regulated, subject to endless surveillance and State control.


UPDATE:
The best time to introduce this sort of database would be when there will be minimal activity so February or October/November; but this is a Labour Government database so it is being introduced over the Easter weekend. Do you think this Labour government are taking the piss now.


UPDATE 2:
The Telegraph also has this quote:

"The e-Borders scheme has already screened over 82m passengers travelling to Britain, leading to more than 2,900 arrests, for crimes including murder, drug dealing and sex offences. e-borders helps the police catch criminals attempt to escape justice."

So an enormously expensive and intrusive database is being implemented partly because of the success so far of e-Borders in finding that around 0.003% of tracked journeys lead to arrest.

Another Labour surveillance database

I learn that our surveillance database obsessed Labour government are now compiling a database to track and store for 10 years the international travel records of millions of Britons. The database will store the names, addresses, telephone numbers, seat reservations, travel itineraries and credit card details of travellers.

Isn't that brilliant a government database with my credit card details and address details on it just ready for the data to be lost and to fall into the hands of the unscrupulous. A database with my travel records on it that might establish likely patterns of holidaying so that a dishonest civil servant could extract such information and pass it onto burglars who would be happy to pay for such information.


I assume that this Labour government will claim that the database is essential in the fight against crime, terrorism and illegal immigration. I also assume that they are lying about this as they are about most everything else that they tell us.

This Labour government seem to think that they can justify almost any restriction of personal freedom in the name of "fighting terrorism"; meanwhile suspected terrorists are allowed to live in the community because of fear of infringing their human rights by expelling them and preachers of hate can spout their poison because of the fear of inflaming race relations by arresting them.


The Labour government have destroyed the economy of this economy, that is becoming very clear; they have also almost destroyed the very fabric of society, that will become clearer soon.

Another Labour Government IT security disaster

The Government Gateway IT system has been compromised. A USB memory stick containing user information and access passwords was found in a pub car park. As a result the Government has had to order an emergency shutdown of a key Government computer system to protect millions of people's private details. Not good timing as people frantically try to register their tax returns on-line after the official deadline of 31 October and before the unofficial deadline of 3 November.

You can read more in The Mail.

This Labour government's record on IT system implementation and IT security has been abysmal, the ID card/National Identity Register and the NHS IT project have wasted too much money and as we cannot be assured as to their integrity they should be scrapped forthwith.

The twenty first winner of the weekly "No shit, Sherlock" award

This week the winner is Sir Ken Macdonald, the current Director of Public Prosecutions although he will retire in 10 days time. He is reported to have said that the state was poised to take powers to keep information on everyone and "we might end up living with something we can't bear."

"We need to take very great care not to fall into a way of life in which freedom's back is broken by the relentless pressure of a security state."

"No shit, Sherlock"

They want to know everything that we do

News in The Times that:

"Ministers are considering spending up to £12 billion on a database to monitor and store the internet browsing habits, e-mail and telephone records of everyone in Britain.

GCHQ, the government’s eavesdropping centre, has already been given up to £1 billion to finance the first stage of the project.

Hundreds of clandestine probes will be installed to monitor customers live on two of the country’s biggest internet and mobile phone providers - thought to be BT and Vodafone. BT has nearly 5m internet customers."

Unsurprisingly:

"The Home Office stressed no formal decision had been taken but sources said officials had made clear that ministers had agreed “in principle” to the programme.

Officials claim live monitoring is necessary to fight terrorism and crime. However, critics question whether such a vast system can be kept secure. A total of 57 billion text messages were sent in the UK last year - 1,800 every second. "

As usual this is being justified under the pretext of fighting crime and the usual helpful fools will be spouting "if you have nothing to hide...", "if it prevents one serious crime...." and "will nobody think of the children?". These arguments are spurious, this measure like so many from this Labour government is about control. The only cheery piece of news is that this Labour government are so inept and unable to implement big IT projects that any introduced system will not work properly, on the downside the security will also be crap and have more gaps in it than Peter Mandelson's CV.