Open rights for all
Today is Open Rights Group’s third birthday. Most of you who read this will know that I care greatly (often to the point of apoplexy) about digital rights and personal privacy. ORG can somehow take all my pent up rage and manages to channel it into civil discourse and lobbying. This is important, both for my stress levels and for the nation as a whole.
As part of the celebrations they have published their 2008 Annual Report and for a slightly more casual approach this blog entry. Please have a read and if you aren’t already a member and have even the vaguest unease at the way our government is encroaching into ownership (and ongoing losses) of our personal data and online lives then give them your support.
Happy Third Birthday ORG!
ID Card Fun
According to The Register :
Identity checks will normally rely on the biometric data held on cards and passports rather than the National Identity Register
HA HA HA HA HA HA.
Noooo, that’s not going to be open to huge abuse. Not at all.
I predict a FAIL.
Can we please stop wasting much needed cash on this mess now?
Leaked UK gov't doc reveals plan to "coerce" Brits into national ID register
Via Boing Boing:
Phil from the UK anti-ID-register group NO2ID sends in this nugget—note the call to action there. We’ve got a sensitive government document revealing the British government’s plan to trick us into a database state and we need as many copies as possible, as quickly as possible!
My mirror of the NO2ID annotated document is here.
The full NO2ID call to action reads as follows:
UK campaigners NO2ID this morning enlisted the help of bloggers across the world to spread a leaked government document describing how the British government intends to go about “coercing” its citizens onto a National Identity Register. The ‘ID card’ is revealed as little more than a cover to create a official dossier and trackable ID for every UK resident – creating what NO2ID calls ‘the database state’.
NO2ID’s national coordinator, Phil Booth, exhorted bloggers, freedom lovers and anyone who gives a damn about personal privacy to mirror the annotated document on their site.
“The charade is over. While ministers try to bamboozle the British public with fairytales about fingerprints, officials are plotting how to dupe and bully the population into surrendering control of their own identities.”
“Biometric ID cards are a sham; a magician’s flourish to cover the biggest identity fraud there has ever been.”
TCSOTD 2007-11-29
Tories: Europeans could get access to UK ID database
... can we just get rid of this idiocy now, please?
RIPA used for non-terrorist investigation shock
... not really a shock, now, is it. Sometimes I really hate saying I told you so.
TCSOTD 2007-11-27
Petition to abandon plans to create the Information Sharing Index
Henry Porter: A mass movement is needed to tackle the state’s snoopers
... hint: Open Rights Group is a good place to start
‘Biometrics are not a panacea for data loss’:A letter to the Joint Committee on Human Rights
Innocents fear DNA database errors
... ‘In the past year, more than 100 possible inaccuracies in the documentation of DNA profiles have been discovered, and a further 1,500 administrative mistakes have been logged on the system.’
A Chinese man is suing for divorce after discovering that he is the father of only one of his twins.
Taxpayer may have to pay £170bn for PFI schemes, says Treasury
Miss Mind the Gap sacked
... oh dear, TfL seem to have lost their corporate sense of humour
