ID Cards update

Big Brother Watch details the ways in which Gordon Brown's totalitarian Labour government intends to force segments of the population to take an ID card. Meanwhile Victor Cardiss in the comments remarks that:

"two hundred and sixty countries are introducing the same Biometric ID card, yet they insist an calling it a 'national' ID card.
The same private, American company will administer the database in each country (though it may have a different name in each).
By the time it becomes compulsory you'll need it for everything and you'll look like a bit of a Ludite for not wanting one. It will however have so many problems that the government will have to come up with an incredible, global solution.... The personal ID Chip!
(http://www.wethepeoplewillnotbechipped.com/main/news.php)"

Not a huge demand then!

On 25 January Alan Johnson proudly declared that

"Since 20 October, and up to and including 16 January, over 3,700 applicants have been enrolled or have made an enrolment appointment for an identity card."

Yesterday Meg Hillier revealed that:

"as of 3 March 2010 there have been 4,307 applications for identity cards from people living in the north-west of England, including Greater Manchester, Cheshire, Merseyside, Lancashire and Cumbria."

So in the seven weeks between these two answers a maximum of 606 applications were made, that's 86 a week or under 14.5 a day (assuming a six day week). At that rate the whole UK would be signed up in around 13,500 years, which oddly enough is when Gordon Brown's legacy of debt will be paid off.

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.

Monitor everyone, record everything

The Register reported recently that

"Exclusive The government is pressing ahead with plans to spend hundreds of millions of pounds on a massive central silo for all UK communications data, The Register has learned.

Home Office civil servants are working on plans for the database under the banner of the Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP). The team has recently been expanded and a director-level official appointed to run the project, which is not yet official policy in public.

Sources said secret briefings revealed the cost of the database would run to nine figures and has already been factored into government spending plans. The IMP budget was part of the intelligence agencies' undisclosed funding bid to the Comprehensive Spending Review last year. In an answer to a parliamentary question on 8 July, the Home Office refused to provide any budgetary details, citing national security concerns.

The sum will dwarf the £19m we recently reported the government has given telecoms companies to service authorities' data requirements since 2004. The überdatabase will render existing arrangements for sharing communications data with government agencies obsolete.

The project has been pushed hard at Whitehall by the intelligence agencies MI6 and GCHQ. One ISP source described their demands as "science fiction". It's envisaged that the one-stop-shop database will retain details of all calls, texts, emails, instant messenger conversations and websites accessed in the UK for up to two years."

Yet again this Government shows its true colours. We are all to be monitored and have our movements, phone calls, emails, web usage and all activity monitored 24/7 - after all if we have nothing to hide why should we worry?

What a bunch of control freak bastards we have in government in this Country.

BBC Have Your Say

I haven't commented on a BBC Have Your Say for a while but the one entitled

"Should council snooping powers be changed? - Councils in England have been urged to review the way they use surveillance powers to investigate suspected crime. Should their powers be curbed?"

As ever the "Readers Recommended" is well worth a perusal:

"Sorry? Access to phone and email records by my council? What? You mean arbitrary access at will without judge’s permission? When did this happen?

Backdoor legislation introduced by a backdoor ‘government’; why does this have echoes of the old East Germany?

Don’t worry though, sheeple, there is nothing to worry about; they are here to protect us, aren’t they? All of their intentions are honourable. We have nothing to fear!

I am bereft of further comment; what have THEY done to this country?

Steve B, Wilts, United Kingdom


This is an astonishing example of how powers brought in to deal with terrorism can be extended to cover the most mundane aspects of daily life. It should serve as a check against any complacency on ID cards. The Government says that the vast amount of information the ID card database will make available will be used to counter terrorism, but do not recognise that any future government may take a different view of things and put hte information to more intrusive uses.

David, Bristol



They brought thes laws in to deal with terrorism, but they seem to have been used to spy on dog-walkers.

Then they wonder why so many people object to 42 days

David Potts, Grayswood, United Kingdom



I work for a large engineering company - we are out on the road all day in single occupancy vans - no passengers allowed. A colleague of mine stopped to have lunch in his vehicle at a layby in a torrential downpour, after eating he lit up a ciggie.

Surprise, Surprise next day he is called into managers office as the local council have sent in a photograph taken on a telescopic lens capturing the "offence".

This country is a joke - terrorists walk free.

Brendan Olear



What would be more beneficial is for tax-payers to set up CCTV to spy on councilors to see where our council tax is being used!

Some councils cannot be bothered to collect rubbish once a week - do the Government honestly expect them to fight Terrorism!

[Star-boy], Somewhere between boredom and sexual frustration, United Kingdom



It is a pity they don't use the powers to snoop on potholes in the road and get them fixed.

Unbelievable, that this amount of power be put in the hands of petty minded town hall officials. Leave the defence of the realm to the police and the forces, and switch this ridiculous law off.

[InTheNameofSanity], London, United Kingdom



Too late. Nulabour are already turning this country into a police state.

If you don't like being spied on, this is about the last country on Earth you should be living in. Nulabour see everything you earn as being theirs, and feel they should know everything you do.

Get used to it.

Steve Butler, Basingstoke, United Kingdom



I think this is an extremely dangerous situation. Council officials should not be granted such obscene powers to spy upon people.
I am concerned that they have been so casually awarded the rights to access phone and email records. They are as fallible as anyone with such awesome power and it seems there are no proper checks in place. We have less freedom to even breathe unobserved in the UK than under any of the old communist regimes. Bar codes on our foreheads next?

[sharpshooter1], Sandhurst, United Kingdom "

As ever the BBC viewers have a better grasp on "liberty" than the BBC.

David Davis?

Rumours abound that the shadow home secretary, David Davis, is set to resign as an MP thus triggering a by-election. This is very surprising news. Whether there is a scandal that he is trying to avoid or if this is the most incredible stunt re his opposition to the 42 days vote I do not know. A statement is due soon.


Update: Sky are reporting that:

"Shadow home secretary David Davis has resigned as an MP apparently to highlight his opposition to the detention of terror suspects for 42 days without charge. His resignation will trigger a by-election which he will fight on the grounds that he is against government's increasing intrusion into the public's lives."

Update 2: David Davis is standing down to "take a stand" to "force a by-election". I will fight it on the grounds of "the slow strangulation of ... freedom." "Ever intrusive .. loss of freedom...". "If they do send me back here, it will be with a single message: that this monstrous law will not stand."


An incredible step to take and how this play out I cannot predict....


Did David Cameron know about this in advance? A statement is due from him within the hour. David Davis is a very independently minded man of principle and he may have not agreed it with David Cameron.

This is one of those moments that the deck of cards is thrown in the air and we do not know how they will fall. A truly exciting moment in British politics.


Update 3:
Lib Dems will not contest the by-election so as to make it a straight fight on the issue - if it can...

This is moving very fast, too fast? Can you imagine the panic at Number 10, what should they say and do?

Eleventh winner of the weekly "No shit, Sherlock" award

I know the week eleven prize is not due yet but this BBC headline could not go unrewarded:

"ID cards 'could threaten privacy'"

Read the article here. I will be logging more about ID cards soon.

"ID cards 'could threaten privacy'"

No shit, Sherlock

Bodes well for the National Identity Register, doesn't it?

From The Mail comes news of a report by the British Computer Society that informs us that:

"DNA database - ...contains more than half a million inaccurate entries"

"Research by IT specialists found 4 per cent of the population - almost two million people - had discovered incorrect information stored under their name by Whitehall or local authorities.

The total climbs even higher when partial or incomplete information is included.

The British Computer Society said this left different departments holding conflicting pieces of information about a person.

When they tried to share information, it led to "mismatches" in an alarming 20 per cent of cases."


Do you trust Government with your data? I don't.

Entry onto the DNA database now compulsory?

I see that a man fingerprinted and DNA swabbed for non payment of a £2.40 train ticket. Welcome to police state Britain...

David Blunkett's comments today on the Data Disks and the NIR?

Many thanks to Mr Eugenides for spotting this short article by David Blunkett, the twice sacked (or forced to resign) Cabinet Minister. Mr Eugenides has discovered that Mt Blunkett is the Chair of the International Advisory Committee to Entrust Inc., a "company providing internet security systems", for which he is, according to the Register of Members' Interests, paid between £25,000 and £30,000 per annum. Entrust run several ID card schemes around the world and "Entrust has formally registered an interest in the British ID cards project, via a scheme for potential future suppliers to notify themselves to the Home Office's Identity and Passport Service, and has attended two seminars organised for the ID cards programme."

It appears that Mr Blunkett's moratorium clause that prevented him from lobbying British ministers or officials for two years after his resignation from government expired this month (two years after his last exit from government). It looks as though he is now going to start to do some lobbying for Entrust.