Feed Editor 24 May 2007 14:11:23 GMT Our Latest Database State News http://www.ourworldoursay.org/database_state.php http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss en Gordon Brown has, either for genuine transparency in Government reasons, or, more likely, for cynical short term "Must be Seen To Be Doing Something" reasons just before the Crewe and Nantwich by-election, pre-announced a list of forthcoming Bills, which would traditionally have been first revealed in the Queen's Speech in November. See the document with the meaningless slogan title "Preparing Britain for the Future" - Government's Draft Legislative Programme 2008/09 (.pdf) These include Yet Another Police Bill, and a Transport Security Bill - more on those in later blog postings. The one which caught our attention most is the Communications Data Bill which will increase the Government and Police snooping capabilities, regarding Internet usage logfiles etc. Telephones and mobile phones are already subject to the mandatory Data Retention scheme, brought into force last October, as a result of the "policy laundered" European Union Directive on Data Retention ("we have to do this because the EU told us to" - even though it was the UK Government which was on of the prime movers who helped to inflict this wasteful and intrusive policy on all 450 million European Union citizens in the first place). 30 Jul 2008 17:28:37 GMT http://p10.hostingprod.com/@spyblog.org.uk/blog/2008/05/communications-data-bill-announced.html 2EBE945C-85E1-4E38-A10C-91587234EC55 SpyBlog Leader of the House Harriet Harman is doing a consultation on the draft legislative programme for next year. I'm vexed by the suggested data communications bill, so here's how I responded 30 Jul 2008 17:27:36 GMT http://williamheath.net/?p=57 William Heath FA02C7BA-4DE7-4D9D-BCFA-EB4FBAAF9D9E A government database holding details of every phone call made, email sent and minute spent on the internet by the public could be created as part of a centralised fight against crime and terrorism, it emerged today. News of the proposal prompted alarm about the country's growing surveillance culture and raised fears of "data profiling" of citizens. It follows on from plans for databases for ID cards and NHS electronic patient records. Telecoms companies and internet service providers would be compelled to hand over their records to the Home Office under proposals that could find their way into the new data communications bill. 30 Jul 2008 17:21:13 GMT http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/may/20/justice.privacy?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront Anil Dawar 37564D80-62BC-47A1-ADC9-F8DEFB15C06C The Guardian This column is utterly pointless. I'll say it now to save you the trouble later. It won't make a blind bit of difference to what Britain is becoming - a society in which ordinary citizens have no rights of privacy. Fifty years from now you won't be able to buy so much as a packet of condoms without producing a biometric ID card, linked to a government computer that logs (“for your own good") how much nookie you're getting - and probably where, when, how and with whom. But I'm going to write it anyway, because as far as I'm aware it's not yet forbidden to object to the imposition of sinister surveillance - though that will probably be only a matter of time. Besides, it's not good for my health to walk round with my blood boiling and steam coming out of my ears. 30 Jul 2008 17:20:12 GMT http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/article3576592.ece Richard Morrison C3EC35A5-BB3E-4E99-AF1B-E6C245855788 The Times The Brown government is considering a central database of all UK communications data including times and durations of phone calls, emails and internet access for every British citizen. The draft bill is still being considered by ministers and a Home Office spokeswoman told us no decision had yet been reached. The spokeswoman told The Register: "Ministers have made no decision on whether a central database will be included in that draft bill." She refused to compare the proposed legislation to Ripa, as it is still only a proposal. Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act passed in 2000 and the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001, companies like telcos and internet service providers already have to keep this information in case it is needed by a police or security service investigation. It appears what is different now is that this information will be actively collected and stored in one place by the government. Reports on the proposals suggest authorities will still need to go to the courts to gain access to the database. However, such a massive amount of data will be ripe for speculative data-mining and fishing techniques, rather than more targeted searches. 30 Jul 2008 17:18:13 GMT http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/20/central_government_database_proposed/ John Oates 0B298B62-7717-4FC6-A5ED-6660591B8F5F The Register The Oyster system on London's public transport network has suffered a fault, rendering the electronic cards inoperable for about five hours. The cards are used as a form of payment across the city on the Tube, buses, trams and the Docklands Light Railway. A fault lasting from about 0530 BST to 1030 BST on Saturday meant card readers did not work and some passengers could be charged a maximum fare by mistake. 31 Jul 2008 14:14:52 GMT http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7503197.stm 35D01228-6A28-4C58-83CC-5C006471CA9D BBC The UK and US governments are to set up a fast-track scheme for trusted, frequent travellers between the two countries, immigration minister Liam Byrne announced today. So say goodbye to immigration blues? Not so fast - the agreement between the two countries only "sets out the shared determination to develop a swift channel across the two borders for trusted travellers", presumably meaning that it'll be a while yet. The proposed swift channel, says the Home Office, will use fingerprint, iris or facial recognition to speed up border control, and "builds on the success" of the UK's IRIS scheme, which uses iris scans to identify registered trusted travellers at the border. IRIS isn't massively popular (it's been used over a million times since March 2006), but at least some of its 200,000 registered users are enthusiastic about it, and registration is relative simple, albeit involving a measure of agreed privacy invasion. Implementing a system of this sort that the US would be happy with is however not necessarily trivial, and it's the 'trusted' bit of trusted traveller that the Department of Homeland Security is likely to chew away at. User registration for the proposed system would have to be carried out to the satisfaction of both governments, with both running background checks and watchlist checks of the candidates. And one can probably presume that whatever data on you the UK government looks up will automatically be passed on to the US. 31 Jul 2008 14:12:55 GMT http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/03/byrne_uk_us_trusted_traveller/ John Lettice 77CF2CF1-6887-4CCB-9BB7-B2AF72EFC8B7 The Register Phone and internet companies will soon be forced to keep logs of internet usage to be made available to the police under a new law announced by Prime Minister Gordon Brown this week. The law, the Communications Data Bill, will implement the remainder of the European Union's Data Retention Directive. Last October the Government enacted regulations which said that telcos must keep records of phone calls to and from land lines and mobile telephones. That requirement will be extended to records of customers' internet usage, email usage and voice over internet protocol (VoIP) records. “The aim of the [Directive] is to ensure that certain data is retained to enable public authorities to undertake their lawful activities to investigate, detect and prosecute crime and to protect the public," said a Home Office spokeswoman. 30 Jul 2008 18:07:33 GMT http://www.out-law.com/page-9121 D0FD722A-852C-44D4-866A-8B30B5E3E166 Out-Law Councils have said they are "more than happy" to stop selling voters' details to companies, after a report condemned the practice. The government-commissioned review said providing electoral roll information to marketing firms gave a "poor message". But the Local Government Association told the BBC it was "no skin off our noses" to stop, as the practice was "fiddly" and made "very little money". Individuals can ask councils not to pass on their details to firms. 31 Jul 2008 14:13:57 GMT http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7500826.stm 3C973B7D-0F9C-4B38-8D2E-CCA17627C858 BBC A massive government database holding details of every phone call, e-mail and time spent on the internet by the public is being planned as part of the fight against crime and terrorism. Internet service providers (ISPs) and telecoms companies would hand over the records to the Home Office under plans put forward by officials. The information would be held for at least 12 months and the police and security services would be able to access it if given permission from the courts. The proposal will raise further alarm about a “Big Brother" society, as it follows plans for vast databases for the ID cards scheme and NHS patients. There will also be concern about the ability of the Government to manage a system holding billions of records. About 57 billion text messages were sent in Britain last year, while an estimated 3 billion e-mails are sent every day. 30 Jul 2008 17:12:10 GMT http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/telecoms/article3965033.ece Richard Ford CFA05E48-D38B-49E0-8489-D74A9D4F4A91 The Times Millions of identity cards are carrying a serious security flaw that allows them to be cloned by anyone with a standard laptop,The Times has learnt. The Mifare smartcard, which is used to gain access to thousands of schools, hospitals and government departments around Britain, as well as providing the technology behind 17 million Oyster cards for travel in London, was hacked into by scientists at a Dutch university. Bart Jacobs, of Radboud University, used a commercial laptop to clone a swipe access card to a public building in the Netherlands. His team then travelled to London, where they used the same technique to ride on the Underground for a day without paying. Security experts said that the breach posed a serious risk to security as swipe cards to sensitive areas could be cloned with ease. 31 Jul 2008 14:11:18 GMT http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4184481.ece Alexi Mostrous FDEAF46F-F0F8-4C48-A507-6E51466EC3EB The Times The loss of discs containing personal details of 25 million people was "entirely avoidable", a report says. The Poynter report does not blame individual officials, but highlights "serious institutional deficiencies" at HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC). Chancellor Alistair Darling told MPs action was already being taken to improve data security. The Tories said the report and another by the Independent Police Complaints Commission were "truly devastating". Shadow Chancellor George Osborne said they highlighted "incompetence and systemic failure at the heart of this government". They were "a guide to how not to govern this country", he added. 31 Jul 2008 14:10:37 GMT http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7472814.stm 8C64B6D0-3BC3-4EAA-BEC1-F8268157BFF0 BBC The European Commission has adopted proposals to make it easier for police to check criminal records in other European countries. The European Criminal Records Information System will set out the technical specifications so that police can get easy-to-use records from forces in other countries. Jacques Barrot, commissioner for Justice Freedom and Security, said: "Information about previous conviction[s] shall circulate between judges and prosecutors as well as police authorities. This is essential in order to provide adequate responses to crime but also to prevent new crimes from being committed." Criminal records will only be stored on national databases not on a European-wide megadatabase. The Commission aims to create interconnection software by the beginning of next year. 31 Jul 2008 14:09:11 GMT http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/02/ec_police_exchange/ John Oates 651094C0-F996-4E94-B8F9-B4B739E1462C The Register A survey of UK councils has found some are spying on litter louts and people who let dogs foul public places, using laws to track criminals and terrorists. Some local authorities have used the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) more than 100 times in the last 12 months to conduct surveillance. The findings, obtained by the Press Association news agency, come from 46 of the 468 local authorities in the UK. Privacy campaigners called for a "root and branch review" of the law. Earlier this month it emerged that Poole Borough Council in Dorset used Ripa to spy on a family for three weeks to find out if they were really living in a school catchment area. The council said the case was treated as potential criminal activity, which justified the use of the act. 30 Jul 2008 17:10:51 GMT http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7369543.stm BC9CA916-E334-4AB1-912F-BE072D9A9D70 BBC Personal data about members of the public has been lost or wrongly revealed by 13 London councils in the last year, a BBC survey has found. Some 23 councils replied to the freedom of information request, with more than half saying data had been lost, stolen or inadvertently disclosed. In one instance, sensitive information about children in care was stolen when a youth worker took files into a bar. The Local Government Association said new guidelines were being produced. 30 Jul 2008 17:03:15 GMT http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7345533.stm 36B7F0BD-2576-4487-94B5-D0B0B0F17BD3 BBC We draw up a handy list of excuses for civil servants This week Fujitsu pulled out of the £12.7bn National Programme for IT - the government's enormous project to introduce national patient records for NHS patients leaving BT, CSC and iSoft still involved. How bad must things be for a company to walk away from just under £1bn of government money? And why are we writing yet another story about a government IT project heading inexorably for the rocks taking billions of pounds of taxpayers' money with it? This has happened so many times, and no doubt will again. We all know what the lessons are but for some reason government and civil servants seem unable to listen to even the simplest lessons from past failures. When the project was started we were told that the use of several contractors meant that competition would drive down prices and the civil service would keep control of costs. Now that there are only two contractors left for the south of England they can effectively dictate terms to Connecting for Health - the body charged with running the scheme. One of the core problems of government IT projects - that no one individual is ever in charge - was supposed to be solved by the appointment of Richard Granger as director general. He left at the end of January, ground down and exhausted according to some. 31 Jul 2008 14:07:59 GMT http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/30/nhs_it_analysis/ John Oates 2E412E0A-A1C2-47C4-BEF8-BEFD4C09F3DE The Register Privacy International's recent complaint to the UK Information Commissioner has threatened to bring a halt to an imminent plan to fingerprint all domestic and international passengers departing from Heathrow's Terminal 1 and Terminal 5, due to begin business on March 27th. The British media is reporting that in response to PI's complaint, the Information Commissioner has advised that passengers should only accept fingerprinting "under protest" until our complaint is resolved. The prospect of a complete shutdown of two Heathrow terminals has emerged since Privacy International's complaint about passenger fingerprinting. The complaint, lodged with the UK Information Commissioner on March 9th 2008, argues that the scheme breaches the fundamental tests of necessity and proportionality under the UK Data Protection Act. The complaint states: "We believe the BAA solution is disproportionately intrusive. Even if it were to be established that passenger switching (if indeed such a problem exists) was a terrorist threat (rather than merely a breach of airline terms and conditions on transferability) then the photo option would be less invasive and would involve fewer intrusive procedures and less personal data." 30 Jul 2008 17:02:21 GMT http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd[347]=x-347-561079 B08DD284-FBD5-4CEF-B428-C4E6F888608B Privacy International The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is the latest government institution facing humiliation over its inability to properly deal with sensitive data. The CPS was sent files on 2,000 serious criminal suspects, including DNA profiles, by Dutch police over a year ago. Dutch authorities were hoping the CPS would check the files and potentially catch some wanted criminals. But the disc was misplaced by the CPS and only found last week. When the CPS ran checks against its database it found 15 suspects were in the country and 11 had committed crimes - including serious assaults, sexual assaults and burglaries - in England and Wales in the last year. Police are now working on tracking down the 15 suspects. 31 Jul 2008 09:39:09 GMT http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/20/government_data_loss/ John Oates FADE901F-E020-4E58-9AF5-5D250D7470FC The Register Quietly on Friday, Heathrow Airport recruited quantities of involuntary lab rats to test fingerprint-based security/traffic control system planned for Terminal 5. The luckless pioneers were selected at Terminal 1, where biometrics are now being deducted from any domestic passengers wishing to visit the international lounge. Unconvincingly, BAA claims that the security system is being used to identify passengers in order to stop them swapping tickets once they're in the departure lounge. Terminal 5, due to open later this year, will mix domestic and international passengers in a single lounge, while although Terminal 1 has two lounges, domestic passengers are allowed to use the international one. So they need separating too - how they've managed previously, we've really no idea. The system being used was described by The Register a little over a year ago. When fully operational it will take biometrics from all passengers as they pass into the departure lounge, and match them up as they board the aircraft. The biometrics being taken are fingerprints and a digital photograph - not, as incorrectly reported elsewhere, iris scans 30 Jul 2008 18:12:12 GMT http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/04/heathrow_biometric_id/ John Lettice 514E3A34-3BF9-4069-AEC9-2ECC6D175442 The Register "There is a difference between private and secret." So said Ken Livingstone when he told journalists last week - to pre-empt the disclosure by a Sunday newspaper - that he was the father of five children by three women. The Mayor of London is absolutely right, and makes an important distinction that ought to guide our judgement of the standards of conduct in public life. The Speaker and the Prime Minister tried to use the privacy argument in their doomed attempt to prevent full disclosure of MPs' expenses. Twelve days ago, the House of Commons Commission decided, at the last minute and against its previous legal advice, to appeal against a ruling by the Information Tribunal that details of expenses should be published. That decision - a decision that will cost the public purse thousands in legal fees - was taken at a meeting of the commission called at short notice and attended by two members: Michael Martin, the Speaker, and Harriet Harman, the Leader of the House. It is inconceivable, therefore, that they were acting without the knowledge and approval of Gordon Brown. 30 Jul 2008 17:01:35 GMT http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-privacy-yes-secrecy-no-805136.html 23E6D3B6-BEE5-485B-836F-7CE7BD7C41AD The Independent Husbands who are not where they are supposed to be could soon be in danger of being “sniffed" out by a mobile phone service that gives suspicious partners an electronic map showing the location of their spouse. The Social Network Integrated Friend Finder (Sniff) is a new application, accessed via Facebook or mobile phone, which could bring an end to frantic “Where r u?" text messages. The service, popular in Scandinavia, promises to provide users with a detailed map of their friends' locations, any time and anywhere. However, there are fears that Sniff could be abused by employers to remove the last vestiges of privacy from staff. 30 Jul 2008 17:00:21 GMT http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article3656103.ece Adam Sherwin 2C8202B2-3570-4428-9D82-8288B6B971EC The Times This guide is part of the Machine Identification Code Technology project. It explains how to read the date, time, and printer serial number from forensic tracking codes in a Xerox DocuColor color laser printout. This information is the result of research by Robert Lee, Seth Schoen, Patrick Murphy, Joel Alwen, and Andrew "bunnie" Huang. We acknowledge the assistance of EFF supporters who have contributed sample printouts to give us material to study. We are still looking for help in this research; we are asking the public to submit test sheets or join the printers mailing list to participate in our reverse engineering efforts. The DocuColor series prints a rectangular grid of 15 by 8 miniscule yellow dots on every color page. The same grid is printed repeatedly over the entire page, but the repetitions of the grid are offset slightly from one another so that each grid is separated from the others. The grid is printed parallel to the edges of the page, and the offset of the grid from the edges of the page seems to vary. These dots encode up to 14 7-bit bytes of tracking information, plus row and column parity for error correction. Typically, about four of these bytes were unused (depending on printer model), giving 10 bytes of useful data. Below, we explain how to extract serial number, date, and time from these dots. Following the explanation, we implement the decoding process in an interactive computer program. 30 Jul 2008 16:58:10 GMT http://w2.eff.org/Privacy/printers/docucolor/ 96BB2128-A23E-4B1C-BEFB-994AEECEEEC9 Electronic Frontier Foundation European Union justice watchdogs are concerned that "Big Brother" computer printer technology that allows security agencies to track printed documents might breach privacy laws. Most consumers are unaware that many popular colour laser printers, including those made by Brother, Cannon, Xerox and HP, embed almost invisible tracking dots onto documents, uniquely identifying the machine that printed them. Franco Frattini, European Commissioner for Justice and Security, has launched an investigation after receiving official complaints from Euro-MPs. "To the extent that individuals may be identified through material printed or copied using certain equipment, such processing may give rise to the violation of fundamental human rights, namely the right to privacy and private life," he said. "It also might violate the right to protection of personal data." 30 Jul 2008 16:56:52 GMT http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1579080/Invisible-dots-left-by-printers-%27breach-privacy%27.html Bruno Waterfield DACF608D-4AD9-4B17-B7CA-0B5E84526606 The Daily Telegraph Canon is using Iris watermarking to take photographer's copyright protection to the next level. . . . to provide an imaging apparatus that makes it possible to protect the copyright of photographic images by reliably acquiring biological information of a photographer . . . - US Patent Application No. 2008/0025574 30 Jul 2008 16:55:14 GMT http://www.photographybay.com/2008/02/09/canon-iris-registration-watermark/ AC531B10-0860-4C7F-A05F-13F33C42E7D4 Photography Bay A House of Lords committee has branded the Government 'complacent' on e-crime and hopes to force ministers to improve protection. Rebecca Thomson investigates With millions of people shopping and banking on the internet, private and public sector organisations now hold massive amounts of information about individuals. Yet last year Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) very publicly lost the personal data of 25 million people, on two discs mislaid in the post; the Ministry of Defence lost thousands of sets of sensitive data - and even Marks and Spencer lost a laptop containing information on 26,000 staff. Data security is big business for corporations and for government - and even bigger business for criminals. It takes only one mistake or one lapse in security for criminals to get access to data and, as the use of technology in everyday life expands, so do the ways to exploit it. Potentially sensitive data is becoming more readily available to those who want to find it and it is getting more difficult for individuals to protect themselves. 31 Jul 2008 09:36:23 GMT http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml?xml=/connected/2008/02/21/dldata121.xml 56237F81-BA8C-466E-9778-935837810B94 The Daily Telegraph This month USA Today reported that the National Security Agency has been compiling and searching a massive database of Americans' telephone call records and data mining it for suspicious patterns. NPR reported that this activity was part of the same eavesdropping program The New York Times revealed in April. With the new revelations (which the phone companies have denied) an old debate has again reared its ugly head. Proponents of strong government say civil libertarians don't appreciate the terrorist threat, and civil libertarians say that advocates of mass surveillance don't appreciate the danger of a prying government. But that trade-off between privacy and security is mythological. Giving up privacy does not necessarily result in greater security, and greater security does not necessarily require a loss of privacy. 30 Jul 2008 16:53:48 GMT http://www.wired.com/politics/law/commentary/circuitcourt/2006/05/70971 Jennifer Granick 16322293-A553-4A8E-A4E2-60A525E1F158 Wired US spooks will not get access to English and Welsh census information even if the census contract is won by US defence firm Lockheed Martin. Treasury Minister Angela Eagle told the Treasury Select Committee yesterday that the data would be kept safe. There are two companies still bidding for the £450m contract - T-Systems, part of Deutsche Telekom, and Lockheed Martin. The US "Patriot Act" gives the secret service access to private information held by US corporations. Last year the Green Party called for a boycott of a census trial involving Lockheed Martin because of its controversial defence work. 30 Jul 2008 16:52:29 GMT http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/07/spook_census_link/ John Oates EC7C8F50-DE71-4618-9689-A2CCD0CDB4A1 The Register Microsoft is developing Big Brother-style software capable of remotely monitoring a worker's productivity, physical wellbeing and competence. The Times has seen a patent application filed by the company for a computer system that links workers to their computers via wireless sensors that measure their metabolism. The system would allow managers to monitor employees' performance by measuring their heart rate, body temperature, movement, facial expression and blood pressure. Unions said they fear that employees could be dismissed on the basis of a computer's assessment of their physiological state. Technology allowing constant monitoring of workers was previously limited to pilots, firefighters and Nasa astronauts. This is believed to be the first time a company has proposed developing such software for mainstream workplaces. 30 Jul 2008 16:50:43 GMT http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article3193480.ece?&EMC-Bltn=NMZBO4 Alexi Mostrous and David Brown 7EC52A75-6F16-470B-AC67-E5785A614D46 The Times Environment officials are asking for access to thousands of ex-directory phone numbers so that they can alert people when their homes are in danger of being flooded. However, following lapses in data security, with the government criticised over missing computer disks containing details on millions of child benefit claimants, there may be nervousness about allowing the Environment Agency access to numbers. Nearly half of households with a landline in the UK now have an ex-directory number. The government's information commissioner, Richard Thomas, will make the decision whether to allow the agency, which is overseeing the UK's floods strategy, the right to have them. 31 Jan 2008 15:03:29 GMT http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jan/06/flooding Jo Revill 2D59F826-7190-4F1E-96CC-D5B0494EA51A The Observer, The government has devised an electronic database to track every teenager from the age of 14, recording their personal details, every exam result and exclusions. The database will be accessible to employers, teachers and training agencies, and will include an online CV. The record will be permanent. The government has taken steps to distance the plans from the ID card debate. When it was first conceived in 2002 it was thought the two would be linked, but that plan has now been shelved. The National Union of Students warned last night that the record could lead to a full-blown ID card while lecturer unions expressed concerns about records of students' behavioural issues which could count against them later in life. 31 Jul 2008 09:32:34 GMT http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/feb/13/schools.uk1 Polly Curtis AAE5672E-C256-4A66-A4D6-5FE5BDE73CDA The Guardian Phone numbers and credit card data to be collected under expanded EU plan Passengers travelling between EU countries or taking domestic flights would have to hand over a mass of personal information, including their mobile phone numbers and credit card details, as part of a new package of security measures being demanded by the British government. The data would be stored for 13 years and used to "profile" suspects. Brussels officials are already considering controversial anti-terror plans that would collect up to 19 pieces of information on every air passenger entering or leaving the EU. Under a controversial agreement reached last summer with the US department of homeland security, the EU already supplies the same information [19 pieces] to Washington for all passengers flying between Europe and the US. But Britain wants the system extended to sea and rail travel, to be applied to domestic flights and those between EU countries. According to a questionnaire circulated to all EU capitals by the European commission, the UK is the only country of 27 EU member states that wants the system used for "more general public policy purposes" besides fighting terrorism and organised crime. 30 Jul 2008 18:10:37 GMT http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/feb/23/uksecurity.terrorismandtravel?gusrc=rss&feed=uknews Ian Traynor 232369A3-5016-4F15-8DF1-B3006F58F2A2 The Guardian Several eminent academics who do actually know about information security, cryptography, software engineering etc.. have written a letter, published by one of the signatories Dr. Ian Brown on his Blogzilla blog. Biometrics are not a panacea for data loss: 31 Jan 2008 15:02:12 GMT http://p10.hostingprod.com/@spyblog.org.uk/blog/2007/11/biometrics_labour_government_are_still_clueless_about_the_technology.html 7FAF4119-1306-41B6-8764-65D7E642D989 SpyBlog Prestige contract goes Pearson shaped A Hard drive containing personal details of three million candidates for the UK driving theory test has gone missing from a "secure facility" in, perplexingly, Iowa, Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly has told the House of Commons. The hard drive went missing in May, but 'only' includes name, address, phone number and email - no financial data. So by recent UK standards this is a minor issue. But what was it all about? The data concerns candidates who took their theory test between September 2004 and April 2007, and was being held by a contractor working for the Driving Standards Agency. Now, here's a puzzle. Pearson VUE a part of the Pearson Group, "the largest testing company and education publisher in the world", began a seven year contract with the DSA to administer and process the test in September 2004. But the company being mentioned in relation to the data loss is named as Pearson Driving Assessments Ltd. A company of this name does exist, certainly, and reports that earlier this evening mentioned Pearson VUE seem mysteriously to have switched over to Pearson Driving Assessments Ltd instead. 31 Jan 2008 12:32:14 GMT http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/17/dsa_test_data_loss/ John Lettice 39635778-EA31-4E3C-9853-FAFE159B074C The Register The Liberal Democrats have got their calculator out again and added up all the cost over-runs and delays at the myriad IT projects at the Department for Transport. Taken together, all the DfT's various IT projects are 23 years late and more than £100m over budget. This sounds bad until you realise that one project, the Shared Services Programme, is £92m over budget. The scheme - to provide central services for several transport departments - was originally to cost £31m but now has an estimated cost of £123m. But at least it's not late yet - the project is due for completion in April 2009. Even more disturbingly this is the department which the National Audit Office told us on 16 January wasa shining example of government good practice. 31 Jan 2008 12:30:53 GMT http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/31/dft_successful_it/ John Oates 0F3EDE37-D955-4A84-AD08-71C5FF8E9291 The Register The European e-Identity Conference - EEMA 31 Jan 2008 12:03:55 GMT http://www.enisa.europa.eu/doc/pdf/Workshop/June2007/Presentations/auth_LeymanFrank_%20STORK%2013062007.pdf 3738F2F2-DCB2-42C3-B5D8-ED57DE791A2D A cut-out-and-keep reference guide It's a little known fact that it's possible to have your DNA profile removed from the National DNA Database (NDNAD). While the Police have processes to gather and retain DNA samples - they don't yet have a procedure to delete the DNA of innocent members of the public. It's complicated - but for now, this is what you should do. Over four million profiles have been added to NDNAD since 1995. Last year, 115 profiles were deleted and 667,737 added. In the last five years, 634 DNA profiles have been removed from the database, while 2,649,937 profiles were added. In other words, the number of DNA profiles removed is around 0.02 per cent of the number of profiles added in the period - where we have the information. 31 Jan 2008 15:00:49 GMT http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/07/delete_your_dna_profile/ David Mery B69D6BE7-7B97-4B36-B575-0CA1926DF274 The Register · Minister does not know exactly what is missing · Opposition parties allege culture of carelessness Ministers faced embarrassment over more mislaid data yesterday when they were forced to admit that they did not have details on what information had been lost by nine NHS trusts. The loss of data potentially covering tens of thousands of patients' records has been disclosed to the Department of Health by the trusts and to the information commissioner. Ministers will be worried that the loss will further undermine confidence in the department's plans for a new computer database of all NHS patients' records. 31 Jan 2008 14:59:35 GMT http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2231952,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=11 Patrick Wintour 6CA46BF5-C439-4F9F-A976-2D5C9263DD81 The Guardian When it comes to talking about last week's data loss by the HMRC, I was told not to use precious words outlining my feelings of rage and bafflement that a government body can be so cavalier with so much data because, presumably, we all feel the same. So I will simply note, for the record, that my gob has been totally smacked by this debacle. What I will do is to take a look at the technical elements of this case from the database/data perspective. 31 Jan 2008 11:58:13 GMT http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/25/tech_view_of_data_blunder/ Mark Whitehorn 4727BDAF-AC16-4D0D-884C-B6C1BE33183F The Register The regulator for Britain's snoopers has released a report covering the last nine months of 2006, painting a panglossian picture of a period which saw a quarter of a million intercepts. From 11 April to 31 December 2006 there were 253,557 requests for communication data. In the same period there were only 1,088 errors - mostly due to incorrectly-written phone numbers. The Interception of Communications Commissioner Sir Paul Kennedy said he saw no reason to change the current law, and indeed had only met one person while doing his job who has a different opinion. There has been some debate as to if intercepted information should be permitted as court evidence. 30 Jan 2008 13:23:28 GMT http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/29/interception_communications_commissioner/ John Oates 0F8DF7B5-D90F-4A21-9F69-64C2C02D043F The Register What do fighter jets, ID cards, the sale of a department of the Ministry of Defence and measles have in common? The answer is they have all been involved in scandalously poorly run, and in one case quite possibly corrupt, government deals and schemes. And while they may seem to have nothing to do with UK democracy, the level of trust the public has in government, and its' competence, certainly does. Given that this is the government who struggle to send computer discs through the mail, it is no surprise that public trust ebbs by the day. The question is, if the government wants to run the UK as a board runs a company, why do they not have the necessary standards and expertise to cope with the demands this brings? In perhaps the most egregious case of realpolitik to emerge under New Labour, Britain's biggest ever arms deal was shown to have been secured via slush funds and bribes. The Serious Fraud Office investigation was blocked by the government, who then lost a High Court challenge by anti-corruption campaigners to keep the affair out of the courts. To add insult to injury, one of the world's biggest IT projects- the NHS National Programme for IT, which will connect GPs to hospitals- has been beset by problems and is not trusted by the majority of the medical profession. Another medical-related disaster has been the surge in cases of measles in some London boroughs, partly as a result of the bad computer system installed in 10 out of 31 boroughs just two years ago. In the words of Dr. Mike Fitzpatrick, It's true that at the moment in the whole of the north Thames area the authorities have only a very vague idea of the level of [vaccination] because of the problems with the computer system. This has put tens of thousands of people at risk of catching the disease, which can lead to permanent disability. 31 Jan 2008 12:08:40 GMT http://www.ukwatch.net/article/is_technocracy_dead Ben Rymer 3E0372C4-C973-4B8E-BCE0-DEF8F3751458 UKWatch/Unlock Democracy Microsoft is developing Big Brother-style software capable of remotely monitoring a worker's productivity, physical wellbeing and competence. The Times has seen a patent application filed by the company for a computer system that links workers to their computers via wireless sensors that measure their metabolism. The system would allow managers to monitor employees' performance by measuring their heart rate, body temperature, movement, facial expression and blood pressure. Unions said they fear that employees could be dismissed on the basis of a computer's assessment of their physiological state. 30 Jan 2008 13:22:19 GMT http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article3193480.ece?&EMC-Bltn=NMZBO4 Alexi Mostrous and David Brown 19FD949F-6F28-44CE-9195-2237761759BB The Times We beat China though! Go team! Former world power and current CCTV capital of the universe the UK has been fingered as the worst place in Europe if you fancy a little bit of privacy. The legions of shopping centre cyclopses, together with teeth-gnashing government incompetence on data, and the funny-if-it-weren't-so-scary ID card wheeze mean that Blighty is only narrowly beaten by China in a league of shame of surveillance societies. The list has been released today by London-based pressure group Privacy International (which got into some entertaining handbags earlier in 2007 with Google's PR droids). It produced a privacy index based on a series of categories on either side of the privacy equation: we scored a middling three out of five on democratic safeguards, but a bottom-of-the-barrel one out of five on ID cards and biometrics, for example. The US administration didn't fare much better than the UK. It too made it into the highly un-coveted "endemic surveillance societies" club, along with the fun-loving governments of China, Russia, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand. 30 Jan 2008 13:21:07 GMT http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/31/britain_worst_privacy/ Chris Williams 03409F0C-AAD5-481A-9C3F-E5B18F30E81A The Register The UK has Europe's worst record for protecting private information, according to a new report. London-based watchdog Privacy International (PI) conducted a survey of 47 countries and placed Britain at the bottom of the pile because of its ID card plans and lack of government accountability. Deeming the UK "an endemic surveillance society" alongside Russia, the US, Singapore and China, the poll ranked the country as a whole as well as its individual nations. 29 Jan 2008 18:21:13 GMT http://www.qas.co.uk/company/data-quality-news/uk_ranked_worst_in_europe_at_protecting_private_data_813.htm FD68EB1B-5F4A-480D-BDD0-90C5ADA62B43 QAS Liberty and the state: Does the justice minister need to be reminded what Labour has done to the British constitution? What a very strange cove the justice minister is. He cannot possibly believe what he has written. Here are some of the things that he failed to mention in his account of how Labour has "deepened and extended civil liberties for all". Perhaps he would like to comment on this list. And perhaps others would like to add to/correct the list, a version of which I keep in my wallet to remind myself what Labour has done to the British constitution and to the liberty of the ordinary person. 29 Jan 2008 18:18:18 GMT http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/henry_porter/2007/12/what_jack_straw_forgot_to_mention.html Henry Porter B0A4078F-ECA7-4AF4-8209-EA80E303AA5C The Guardian Last week, we solicited your questions for Internet security guru Bruce Schneier. He responded in force, taking on nearly every question, and his answers are extraordinarily interesting, providing mandatory reading for anyone who uses a computer. He also plainly thinks like an economist: search below for “crime pays" to see his sober assessment of why it's better to earn a living as a security expert than as a computer criminal. 29 Jan 2008 17:21:08 GMT http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/bruce-schneier-blazes-through-your-questions/ Stephen J. Dubner 26564BCE-A300-4B03-AA67-8726CCB9EC07 New York Times Nine NHS trusts in England have admitted losing patient records in a fresh case of wholesale data loss by government services, it has emerged. Hundreds of thousands of adults and children are thought to be affected by the breaches, which emerged as part of a government-wide data security review. The Department of Health says patients have been told and there is no evidence data has fallen into the wrong hands. It follows losses of millions of child benefit claimant and driver details. 31 Jan 2008 12:30:04 GMT http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7158019.stm 34AA28F3-2A5D-4592-8C95-8E0CC0971D1C BBC The data crisis has taken a new twist, as nine NHS trusts admitted losing personal information of patients. Hundreds of thousands of patients could be affected, according to a newspaper report. The news comes in the wake of the loss of 25 million child benefit claimants' details on two discs belonging to HM Revenue and Customs, as well as three million motorists' details in Iowa. The Department of Health says that patients have been informed and there is no evidence that sensitive data has fallen in to the wrong hands. While the DoH has said that the data losses were being dealt with individually by the relevant trusts and that it therefore did not have details of how many patients' records were lost, one trust - City and Hackney Primary Care Trust, in east London - has reportedly lost the details of 160,000 children, according to a story in the Sunday Mirror. The other trusts involved are Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells, East and North Hertfordshire, Sutton and Merton PCT, Sefton Merseyside PCT, Mid-Essex Care Trust, Bolton Royal Hospital, Norfolk and Norwich and Gloucester Partnership Foundation Trust. 31 Jan 2008 12:28:13 GMT http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/12/23/ndata223.xml Tom Chivers 9C634E00-A4E4-4E2D-935C-80DDAE8D432C The Daily Telegraph Liberty and the state: The state can no longer rely on the misplaced belief that privacy must be sacrificed for security Liberty's policy department usually writes for audiences in parliament and Whitehall. If there's a golden rule for effective engagement it's this: avoid hyperbole. It undermines your message and alienates the audience. So, when writing on privacy issues, all talk of "Big Brother", "Orwellian", and "1984" has definitely been discouraged. Earlier this year it struck me that perhaps I had been erring on the side of caution when I was asked to speak at an event organised by the parliamentary IT forum. The title? "Big Brother Britain." Liberty has long battled against the "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" fallacy that presumes only criminals place any premium on their privacy. If any good is to come out of the HMRC lost disc fiasco it is possibly that people will not continue to take such a complacent approach to their private information in future. Opinion polls certainly seem to indicate an increasingly critical public turning against such privacy relevant subjects as the compulsory identity card scheme. The early years of this century were marked by an understandable, if misplaced, belief that privacy was an expendable luxury to be sacrificed in the name of security. It seems the state can no longer rely on this reservoir of goodwill. 31 Jan 2008 12:13:05 GMT http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/gareth_crossman/2007/12/ending_the_surveillance_invasion.html Gareth Crossman 035BF2B6-291E-4500-B1A0-FFCD37AB3EB4 The Guardian · More than half would seek specific consent · Security fears dominate concerns, poll shows Nearly two-thirds of family doctors are poised to boycott the government's scheme to put the medical records of 50 million NHS patients on a national electronic database, a Guardian poll reveals today. With suspicion rife across the profession that sensitive personal data could be stolen by hackers and blackmailers, the poll found 59% of GPs in England are unwilling to upload any record without the patient's specific consent. Three-quarters of family doctors said medical records would become less secure when they are put on a database that will eventually be used by NHS and social services staff throughout England. Half thought the records would be vulnerable to hackers and unauthorised access by officials outside the NHS. A quarter feared bribery or blackmail of people with access to the records and 21% suspected that social services staff would not adhere to the confidentiality rules. 31 Jan 2008 12:10:05 GMT http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2007/nov/20/nhs.health John Carvel FB3324FF-40CC-494B-A794-835129FF9D64 The Guardian The Conservatives have described reports of a new government data security lapse as "disturbing". An ex-contractor at the Department for Work and Pensions had two discs with thousands of benefit claimants' details for more than a year, it has emerged. The unencrypted discs revealed the type of benefits paid, but a DWP spokesman said they did not contain bank details. The woman told the News of the World she forgot to return them after she stopped working for the DWP a year ago. It comes as the search for two missing child benefit discs containing the personal details of 25 million people continues. The fact that it hasn't been copy protected is further evidence of a cavalier attitude towards data protection in government departments - Chris Grayling - Shadow work and pensions secretary The DWP discs in the latest incident contained names, addresses, dates of birth and National Insurance numbers. They were part of a project aimed at encouraging people to switch from a giro to a credit transfer system. It is believed there could be up to 9,000 names on each disc. 31 Jan 2008 12:05:14 GMT http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7123415.stm E33577DF-3F82-4EB5-A3D9-EC47F2B64D7F BBC A senior database administrator for a consumer reporting agency in Florida has admitted stealing more than 8.4 million account records and selling them to a data broker. He netted $580,000 over five years from the scheme. William Gary Sullivan, a DBA for Fidelity National Information Services, faces up to 10 years in federal prison and $500,000 in fines, although prosecutors agreed to recommend a more lenient sentence in exchange for his guilty plea. He's also required to surrender all remaining proceeds and pay restitution to his victims. 31 Jan 2008 12:07:54 GMT http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/12/04/admin_steals_consumer_records/ Dan Goodin 3CF7BD19-65D5-4130-AA8E-92B4B7863ACD Channel Register Facebook vetting 'could be illegal' Employers who trawl social networking sites such as Facebook to dig up information about potential employees could be breaking the law, an internet expert has warned. Facebook is the second fastest growing online brand in Britain The rapid rise of sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and Bebo, where users often post extensive personal information, photos and sometimes candid details of their personal exploits, has led to rumours companies, colleges and universities use them to help vet applicants. John Carr, chairman of the UK Children's Charities' Coalition on Internet Safety, said using the information to research applicants was "possibly illegal, but certainly unethical". He said: "There's a basic law of data protection that if you are processing data, you are only allowed to use it for the purpose for which it was intended. "It's a bit like reading somebody's diary. If you are not part of that person's circle, to look at their stuff and then go to use it to make important decisions on their life, just seems wrong and possibly illegal." 31 Jan 2008 12:00:33 GMT http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml?xml=/connected/2007/11/27/dlface27.xml Ben Farmer F3A02330-C425-4988-AFF4-F66D85475C8A The Daily Telegraph Liberty and the state: Powers to take DNA samples are one part of a new assault on rights Here's a tale for our times. Over the last three years, it has been possible to catch the "Chewing Gum Man" at work somewhere in London, crouched on a pavement. From the distance, he could be homeless or a drunk - his coat is spattered with paint - but as you near, you see that he is painting in enamels, with great delicacy, a picture on the discarded gum that litters urban pavements. When he moves on, the picture will catch passing eyes - particularly children's - for months to come. Each picture tells a story as recounted by a passer-by: this was the place where someone was knocked down or had their first kiss. The pictures are small signs of personal connection, a humanising of an anonymous urban environment; he doesn't want payment, it's a gift of recognition in the city's commercialised and often violent public space. 31 Jan 2008 12:11:51 GMT http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/madeleine_bunting/2007/12/the_policing_of_the_artist.html Madeleine Bunting 3EE2B04E-7984-4C31-9EBF-2ABEC830D770 The Guardian A senior database administrator for a consumer reporting agency in Florida has admitted stealing more than 8.4 million account records and selling them to a data broker. He netted $580,000 over five years from the scheme. William Gary Sullivan, a DBA for Fidelity National Information Services, faces up to 10 years in federal prison and $500,000 in fines, although prosecutors agreed to recommend a more lenient sentence in exchange for his guilty plea. He's also required to surrender all remaining proceeds and pay restitution to his victims. 29 Jan 2008 17:18:54 GMT http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/12/04/admin_steals_consumer_records/ Dan Goodin 20BF3DBC-9AA2-480D-A1A9-E058E1261E87 Channel Register Last week's loss of confidential child benefit records has been a wake-up call to 25 million people about the reality of the government's handling of our personal information. But few realise the extent of what lies ahead. The Identity Cards Act, which slipped, barely noted, on to the statute books in 2006, is the jewel in the crown of a wholesale and well-advanced government commitment to "share" data about each of us between departments on an unprecedented scale. Already some 265 government departments are data-sharing. Electronic identity management in the UK is deeply entrenched in government policy, and yet no one can guarantee that such a data-sharing system can be secure. All we can do is hand over our information, cross our fingers, and hope that it won't happen to us. 31 Jan 2008 11:59:22 GMT http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/comment/0,,2217557,00.html Christina Zaba AC62F010-0B6F-4DB3-A46F-9A49E4786298 The Guardian It took just 19 hours from first contact with the anonymous Russian fraudster until he collected my $240 (£116.50) payment from a local "drop". I had sent a wire transfer to his frozen Siberian home town in exchange for details that would, in theory, grant access to more than £10,000 from the bank account of an unsuspecting British Halifax customer. He offered a choice of British accounts held at Lloyds TSB or HSBC and for more money, the balances could have been fatter - anything up to £35,000, the fraudster promised. For a fee of 1% of the balance he promised the name, branch, account number, sort code and internet login. The encounter with the anonymous Russian in an internet chatroom was one of scores like it going on at the time. In a separate private message, another vendor promised: "I will give you HSBC full info with 26k Pounds...for $500...When can you wire money?" The account I had chosen could be almost cleared out in one day without hitting its transfer limit and alerting the account holder or bank, I was told. 31 Jan 2008 12:02:47 GMT http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2007/nov/24/scamsandfraud.economicpolicy Robert Booth F2E8D092-2A45-44DD-B3E1-1D432E2148FB The Guardian Security breaches that are allowing the financial details of tens of thousands of Britons to be sold on the internet are to be investigated by the country's information watchdog. Without paying a single penny, The Times downloaded banking information belonging to 32 people, including a High Court deputy judge and a managing director. The private account numbers, PINs and security codes were offered as tasters by illegal hacking sites in the hope that purchases would follow. Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, will begin an investigation into the security breach today and Scotland Yard is also investigating. Experts said that the findings suggested that more personal data than ever before was going astray. The Times found: More than 100 websites trafficking British bank details A fraudster offering to sell 30,000 British credit card numbers for less than £1 each A British e-passport for sale, although the Government insists that they are unhackable. 29 Jan 2008 17:17:29 GMT http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2988471.ece Alexi Mostrous and Dominic Kennedy F8EA17AC-A1D8-473F-9174-883301F552C3 The Times Ministers will quickly lose their shame over the missing 25 million files and continue to stockpile our most personal secrets There's no time to crow over the government's loss of 25 million people's details; no time to rejoice at the obvious mortification of Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling, his sidekick, Andy Burnham, Jacqui Smith and Harriet Harman. These people will not be deterred by the calamity of last week. They are shameless. In a month or two they will bounce back. The ID card scheme will be relaunched and Jacqui Smith will continue with her plans to demand 53 pieces of information from people before they travel abroad. The Children's Index, the Children's Assessment Framework, the National Health database, the ever-expanding police DNA database will all continue to scoop up information. Why? Because the control of the masses is coded in the deepest part of Labour's being. 31 Jan 2008 11:56:43 GMT http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2216768,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=19 Henry Porter 5EFDE50B-B338-48D0-8815-517A29CD1573 The Observer The crisis over the security of personal information spread to Scotland last night when it emerged that confidential documents had gone missing in transit to Glasgow. The office of Alex Salmond, Scotland's First Minister, was forced to admit that a package containing printed pension benefit statements dispatched from the Scottish Public Pensions Agency to NHS Greater Glasgow cannot be accounted for. The package was sent by the SPPA on 26 October, as one of 162 packages going to 14 separate addresses throughout Scotland, by Fed Ex, the Scottish Executive's official courier. 31 Jan 2008 11:55:11 GMT http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2216652,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=11 Jamie Doward 4B851231-728C-487C-9A36-D569707596E6 The Observer Journalists find thousands of IDs online The Information Commissioners' in-tray got a little bigger today as it confirmed it would be investigating a series of ID trading sites unearthed by journalists. The Times screamed today that "the financial details of tens of thousands of Britons" were being sold on the internet. The paper detailed how it had been able to download banking information for 32 people, including account numbers, PINS, and security codes, "without spending a single penny". The data, including that of a deputy judge, was apparently offered as a free taster by the ID traders. 29 Jan 2008 17:15:41 GMT http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/03/id_trading/ Joe Fay 848978F5-7A7C-4FBB-BFEC-2B742B08052E The Register HM Revenue and Customs has confirmed that a further six data discs have gone missing in transit between its offices in Preston and London. The discs, which were reported missing on 30 October, contained recorded conversations between a member of staff and a customer making a complaint. Police are still searching for two computer discs containing the details of 25m Child Benefit claimants. 31 Jan 2008 11:53:41 GMT http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7111056.stm C15AB00C-0F14-40A0-80E3-A2DBF5E72DCB BBC Two computer discs holding the personal details of all families in the UK with a child under 16 have gone missing. The Child Benefit data on them includes name, address, date of birth, National Insurance number and, where relevant, bank details of 25 million people. Chancellor Alistair Darling said there was no evidence the data had gone to criminals - but urged people to monitor bank accounts "for unusual activity". The Conservatives described the incident as a "catastrophic" failure. 29 Jan 2008 17:10:07 GMT http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7103566.stm 3EF8F2E7-BB76-452E-8DD7-90A90049F738 BBC Children over the age of six will have their fingerprints taken when applying for a passport to comply with new EU regulations. The European Commission says youngsters must be fingerprinted for all new EU passports and national ID cards even those issued in the UK. Until now, the Government has insisted that only children over the age of 11 applying for biometric passports which are due to be introduced in 2009 have to be fingerprinted. Revealed: The sinister truth about what they do with our children's fingerprints But under the proposals, revealed in a report by the Commission, children as young as six could be forced to attend special identity centres. 31 Jan 2008 11:48:43 GMT http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=496274&in_page_id=1770 Jason Lewis 6F194926-D5E3-4199-B9C0-43C702D1DE58 The Daily Mail The majority of family doctors have said they will shun a government plan to stuff a database full of all our medical records. According to a poll conducted by the Guardian, 59 per cent of GPs said they would not put records on the so-called spine without the consent of a patient, and fully three-quarters say records will be less secure once they are made available to NHS and social service staff on the central database. Fear that the records might be accessed by unscrupulous or unauthorised people were at the heart of GP's caution. The poll found 21 per cent had concerns that social services staff would not follow the rules of doctor-patient confidentiality, and a quarter said they were worried about bribery or blackmail of people with access to record 31 Jan 2008 11:47:26 GMT http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/20/database_bad_say_docs/ Lucy Sherriff 14A6BF05-FA39-49C1-BEE8-8461139FABDA The Register Airlines could have to provide more data on passengers to countries under new laws proposed by the European Union. European officials want law enforcement authorities in member states to receive Passenger Name Record (PNR) information, which will include names, passport numbers, addresses, credit card details, e-mail addresses and phone numbers. The proposal is one of a raft of measures aimed at combating terrorism, and means airlines flying both to and from EU member states will need to provide countries with the information. They currently have to communicate Advanced Passenger Information, which is used for fighting illegal immigration. An EU spokesperson said, "The added value of the PNR is that it helps identify unknown people and develop risk indicators." 31 Jan 2008 11:45:53 GMT http://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/071107_eupnr_cw.html Rebecca Thomson 81ABF545-C8F0-4FF1-9E4C-1A52DF3ABA93 Computer Weekly A big brother for every pupil A school in Doncaster is piloting a monitoring system designed to keep tabs on pupils by tracking radio chips in their uniforms. According to the Doncaster Free Press, Hungerhill School is testing RFID tracking and data collection on 10 pupils within the school. It's been developed by local company Darnbro Ltd, which says it is ready to launch the product into the £300m school uniform market. Boss Trevor Darnborough said: "The Department for Education and Skills is keen to promote use of electronic registration in schools because of its benefits in efficiently monitoring pupils' attendance and the speedy retrieval and analysis of data. 29 Jan 2008 17:06:07 GMT http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/22/kid_chipping_doncaster_go/ Chris Williams 953099FA-15C2-4053-8C1C-DD9E7E12216B The Register Police chiefs want doctors to break medical confidentiality and report patients they treat who have suffered knife or gun shot wounds, the Guardian has learned. The proposals are set to be handed to ministers by police chiefs as part of an intensified new response to tackling youth gang and gun crime. The proposals have caused concern among doctors and civil rights activists, who argue that confidentiality is the cornerstone of the doctor-patient relationship. 29 Jan 2008 17:04:51 GMT http://www.guardian.co.uk/gun/Story/0,,2201118,00.html Vikram Dodd 014F50EA-4C88-48D1-A8BB-9395E2E50D0C The Guardian The move to widen the UK genetic database is yet another example of a relentless desire to monitor every aspect of our everyday lives An elderly lady called a BBC Wales radio phone-in programme on which I was a guest last week to say that she wouldn't mind in the slightest if she was stopped and ordered to submit to a DNA test when her dog fouled the pavement. 'Everyone should give their DNA to the police,' she said before the discussion was cut short. There wasn't time to talk about the sinister absurdity of sanctioning a law that compels old ladies to offer up a mouth swab, whether they want to or not. No time to state that the Home Office and police are engaged on a programme to introduce mass DNA testing by stealth. No time to wonder at the complete absence of parliamentary debate on this crucial issue of liberty. No time to ask whether we can truly trust the police; or to consider what the relatively new science of genetics may be used for in the future; or to wonder at the alarming disappearance of the liberal reflex in British political life. 31 Jan 2008 11:42:59 GMT http://observer.guardian.co.uk/columnists/story/0,,2142060,00.html Henry Porter E92F7FE6-2A52-4532-A6E4-C08AB7C9FE76 The Observer The Liberal Democrats today condemned the policy of holding children's DNA profiles "often without parental consent", as government figures showed almost 150,000 under-16s were on the national database. The Lib Dem shadow home affairs spokesman, Nick Clegg, described the policy as "disturbing". "Thousands of these children will have been found guilty of no crime, yet samples of their DNA will remain on file for life. "The disturbing and illiberal policy of adding a child's most personal information to a massive government computer system, simply on the grounds of an accusation, must stop immediately." 31 Jan 2008 11:41:33 GMT http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,2205513,00.html Hélène Mulholland A23AE8DC-46B8-46AF-8B47-ED4F20AE785D The Guardian Global security and the "war on terror" now dominate the global political agenda. Driven largely by the United States, a growing web of anti-terrorism and security measures are being adopted by nations around the world. This new "security" paradigm is being used to roll back freedom and increase police powers in order to exercise increasing control over individuals and populations. Under the public's radar screen, a registration and surveillance infrastructure of global reach is quietly being constructed. It includes the convergence of national and international databases, the creation of data profiles for whole populations, the creation of a global ID system, the global surveillance of movement, and the global surveillance of electronic communications. The International Campaign Against Mass Surveillance (ICAMS) has launched a petition to demand that international organizations and national governments stop participating in the construction of this system. 25 Oct 2007 16:02:33 GMT http://www.i-cams.org/index.html 2BCC0082-939C-432E-BFD9-A456BD660F25 The International Campaign Against Mass Surveillance (ICAMS) Tracking all of the people, all of the time You know in the movies or on the telly, where the sinister (Bourne) or perhaps heroic (Spooks) government agents are thinking about a problem somewhere? The person in charge often barks something like "Is there any CCTV?" Some kind of minion - perhaps dressed and coiffured like a tramp to indicate technical competence - quickly rattles away on a keyboard. And then, within seconds, bingo - the boss is looking at live images of a given street, often with sufficient resolution to identify faces. 25 Oct 2007 16:00:33 GMT http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/22/gov_cctv_report_national_surveillance_net/ Lewis Page 305CF7E9-723A-47CA-92AC-7D44B2F55000 The Register "The United Kingdom is generally recognised as a leading user of Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) for community safety and crime investigation purposes. We regularly see examples of where it has been used to make our streets safer, reduce the fear of crime and detect serious offences. The use of CCTV in the support of terrorist investigations in the UK has led to considerable worldwide interest, with many countries now following us in developing CCTV infrastructures" 25 Oct 2007 15:59:07 GMT http://www.crimereduction.homeoffice.gov.uk/cctv/cctv048.pdf F5F1B4A8-D298-4BEC-B8A2-D43AAB56CE15 The Home Office Terrorists and extremists have set up shop on the Internet, using it to recruit new members, spread propaganda and plan attacks across the world. The size and scope of these dark corners of the Web are vast and disturbing. But in a non-descript building in Tucson, a team of computational scientists is using the cutting-edge technology and novel new approaches to track their moves online, providing an invaluable tool in the global war on terror. Funded by the National Science Foundation and other federal agencies, Hsinchun Chen and his Artificial Intelligence Lab at the University of Arizona have created the Dark Web project, which aims to systematically collect and analyze all terrorist-generated content on the Web. 25 Oct 2007 15:57:42 GMT http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=110040 CDDFE43A-0E00-4CC5-B7C0-46B28C610317 National Science Foundation Buried in a list of 20 million Web search queries collected by AOL and recently released on the Internet is user No. 4417749. The number was assigned by the company to protect the searcher's anonymity, but it was not much of a shield. Thelma Arnold's identity was betrayed by AOL records of her Web searches, like ones for her dog, Dudley, who clearly has a problem. No. 4417749 conducted hundreds of searches over a three-month period on topics ranging from "numb fingers" to "60 single men" to "dog that urinates on everything." And search by search, click by click, the identity of AOL user No. 4417749 became easier to discern. There are queries for "landscapers in Lilburn, Ga," several people with the last name Arnold and "homes sold in shadow lake subdivision gwinnett county georgia." It did not take much investigating to follow that data trail to Thelma Arnold, a 62-year-old widow who lives in Lilburn, Ga., frequently researches her friends' medical ailments and loves her three dogs. "Those are my searches," she said, after a reporter read part of the list to her. AOL removed the search data from its site over the weekend and apologized for its release, saying it was an unauthorized move by a team that had hoped it would benefit academic researchers. 25 Oct 2007 15:53:40 GMT http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/09/technology/09aol.html?_r=1&oref=slogin Michael Barbaro and Tom Zeller Jr. 6D8CFA86-2085-4F1A-963D-D5495028470D The New York Times As the name implies, Alcoholics Anonymous meetings are anonymous. You don't have to sign anything, show ID or even reveal your real name. But the meetings are not private. Anyone is free to attend. And anyone is free to recognize you: by your face, by your voice, by the stories you tell. Anonymity is not the same as privacy. That's obvious and uninteresting, but many of us seem to forget it when we're on a computer. We think "it's secure," and forget that secure can mean many different things. Tor is a free tool that allows people to use the internet anonymously. Basically, by joining Tor you join a network of computers around the world that pass internet traffic randomly amongst each other before sending it out to wherever it is going. Imagine a tight huddle of people passing letters around. Once in a while a letter leaves the huddle, sent off to some destination. If you can't see what's going on inside the huddle, you can't tell who sent what letter based on watching letters leave the huddle. I've left out a lot of details, but that's basically how Tor works. It's called "onion routing," and it was first developed at the Naval Research Laboratory. The communications between Tor nodes are encrypted in a layered protocol -- hence the onion analogy -- but the traffic that leaves the Tor network is in the clear. It has to be. 25 Oct 2007 15:50:11 GMT http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2007/09/security_matters_0920 Bruce Schneier DF531FC6-5612-42EC-A561-52A5D6E549B3 Wired Most CCTV cameras are 'illegal', watchdog claims London has 10,000 crime-fighting CCTV cameras which cost £200 million, figures show today. But an analysis of the publicly funded spy network, which is owned and controlled by local authorities and Transport for London, has cast doubt on its ability to help solve crime. A comparison of the number of cameras in each London borough with the proportion of crimes solved there found that police are no more likely to catch offenders in areas with hundreds of cameras than in those with hardly any. In fact, four out of five of the boroughs with the most cameras have a record of solving crime that is below average. The figures were obtained by the Liberal Democrats on the London Assembly using the Freedom of Information Act. 25 Oct 2007 15:48:17 GMT http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23412867-details/Tens+of+thousands+of+CCTV+cameras%2C+yet+80%25+of+crime+unsolved/article.do Justin Davenport 91A1C533-2BD6-48EA-B6AA-4DC0C262DE8D Evening Standard The second article in our series looks at the new technologies for collecting personal information, and the dangers of abuse It used to be easy to tell whether you were in a free country or a dictatorship. In an old-time police state, the goons are everywhere, both in person and through a web of informers that penetrates every workplace, community and family. They glean whatever they can about your political views, if you are careless enough to express them in public, and your personal foibles. What they fail to pick up in the café or canteen, they learn by reading your letters or tapping your phone. The knowledge thus amassed is then stored on millions of yellowing pieces of paper, typed or handwritten; from an old-time dictator's viewpoint, exclusive access to these files is at least as powerful an instrument of fear as any torture chamber. Only when a regime falls will the files either be destroyed, or thrown open so people can see which of their friends was an informer. These days, data about people's whereabouts, purchases, behaviour and personal lives are gathered, stored and shared on a scale that no dictator of the old school ever thought possible. Most of the time, there is nothing obviously malign about this. Governments say they need to gather data to ward off terrorism or protect public health; corporations say they do it to deliver goods and services more efficiently. But the ubiquity of electronic data-gathering and processing-and above all, its acceptance by the public-is still astonishing, even compared with a decade ago. Nor is it confined to one region or political system. 25 Oct 2007 15:46:26 GMT http://economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9867324 081C454B-5248-4D68-A868-F8E9C5AE12B5 The Economist Every time we hear of yet another plan for the government to set up yet another database of information about people, we wonder about how it will be misused. Supporters always talk about how helpful such databases are (which is debatable), but rarely are willing to take into account how such systems are going to be abused -- and they're always abused. The latest such case involves an employee at the Department of Commerce who used a Department of Homeland Security database to track an ex-girlfriend. This wasn't just a one-off thing either. He apparently used the database 163 times to check up on her. Then he threatened to have the woman deported and her family killed. So, as the government continues to push the boundaries in trying to collect more and more data on everyone, it's at least worth asking if the potential for abuses is taken into consideration and how they're dealt with (if they're dealt with at all). 25 Oct 2007 15:45:16 GMT http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070924/035849.shtml 274CF77F-000E-4E86-8A95-398614EFF1B1 TechDirt Surveilling the surveillers. It's an idea that Number 6, the nameless hero of the classic British TV show The Prisoner, would have loved. In an attempt to establish equity in the world of surveillance, participants at the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference in Seattle this week took to the streets to ferret out surveillance cameras and turn the tables on offensive eyes taking their picture. Following wearable computing guru Steve Mann into a downtown Seattle shopping mall, about two dozen conference attendees, some of them armed with handheld cameras, snapped photos of smoked-glass ceiling domes in Nordstrom and Gap stores, which may or may not have contained cameras. Companies have been known to install empty camera domes to save money while giving the impression of surveillance. The idea of surveillance that's powerful even if it's not actually present was in line with the theme of this year's CFP conference -- the Panopticon. The Panopticon, a model prison envisioned by philosopher Jeremy Bentham, would feature guard towers using mirrors that allowed the guards to see the prisoners without being seen themselves. This would leave the inmates uncertain as to when they were actually being watched. 25 Oct 2007 15:43:19 GMT http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2005/04/67216 Kim Zetter 59391DA7-381C-4C4E-B52E-B5C9AB2A33F7 Wired If you've seen a Hollywood caper movie in the last 20 years you know the old video-camera-spoofing trick. That's where the criminal mastermind taps into a surveillance camera system and substitutes his own video stream, leaving hapless security guards watching an endless loop of absolutely-nothing-happening while the bank robber empties the vault. Now white-hat hackers have demonstrated a technique that neatly replicates that old standby. Amir Azam and Adrian Pastor, researchers at London-based security firm ProCheckUp, discovered that they can redirect what video file is played back by an AXIS 2100 surveillance camera, a common industrial security camera that boasts a web interface, allowing guards to monitor a building from anywhere in the world. 25 Oct 2007 15:41:50 GMT http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2007/10/camera_hack Ryan Singel AD24C7BE-0FB1-4B22-B63D-3D4294FB7127 Wired Burma's ruling junta is attempting to seize United Nations computers containing information on opposition activists in the latest stage of its brutal crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations, The Times has learnt. UN staff were thrown into panic over the weekend after Burmese police and diplomats entered its offices in Rangoon and demanded hard drives from its computers. The discs contain information that could help the dictatorship to identify key members of the opposition movement, many of whom have gone underground. UN staff spent much of the weekend deleting information. 25 Oct 2007 15:38:55 GMT http://timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article2609683.ece Shwedagon Pagoda/Kenneth Denby FD7C4AD1-A32D-4C51-B788-4375EA8DCD35 The Times The "surveillance society" must be rolled back, Liberal Democrats said today. The party called for the immediate abandonment of the government's ID card scheme, better regulation of CCTV and for DNA samples taken from people who have not been charged or convicted to be destroyed. Debating surveillance and information at the Liberal Democrat conference in Brighton, MPs and delegates condemned the government's attempts to recede liberty in the name of security. Backing the motion, justice spokesman David Heath argued the government appeared to be realising the Orwellian nightmare. He borrowed from Benjamin Franklin to argue those who sacrifice liberty for security, deserve neither. 25 Oct 2007 15:37:18 GMT http://www.politics.co.uk/News/opinion-former-index/policing-and-crime/lib-dems-demand-end-surveillance-society-$478708.htm 78868823-1A67-4112-A9AE-54EF17DD82A8 Politics.co.uk It is a chilling, dystopian account of what Britain will look like 10 years from now: a world in which Fortress Britain uses fleets of tiny spy-planes to watch its citizens, of Minority Report-style pre-emptive justice, of an underclass trapped in sink-estate ghettos under constant state surveillance, of worker drones forced to take on the lifestyle and values of the mega-corporation they work for, and of the super-rich hiding out in gated communities constantly monitored by cameras and private security guards. This Orwellian vision of the future was compiled on the orders of the UK's information commissioner - the independent watchdog meant to guard against government and private companies invading the privacy of British citizens and exploiting the masses of information currently held on each and every one of us - by the Surveillance Studies Network, a group of academics. 25 Oct 2007 15:35:16 GMT http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.1741454.0.uk_2017_under_surveillance.php Neil Mackay EF834A60-C457-419E-83B3-0260FCA2374F Sunday Herald For the Information Commissioner by the Surveillance Studies Network 25 Oct 2007 14:52:26 GMT http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/library/data_protection/practical_application/surveillance_society_full_report_2006.pdf 94B15348-EDAD-40FE-B4BC-D3362502A6F7 Refuseniks face jail time Users of encryption technology can no longer refuse to reveal keys to UK authorities after amendments to the powers of the state to intercept communications took effect on Monday (Oct 1). The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) has had a clause activated which allows a person to be compelled to reveal a decryption key. Refusal can earn someone a five-year jail term. Part III of RIPA was in the original Act but was not activated. The Home Office said last year that it had not implemented the provision because encryption had not been as popular as quickly as it had predicted. It launched a consultation which culminated in Part III being made active on 1st October. 25 Oct 2007 14:50:54 GMT http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/03/ripa-decryption_keys_power/ 1347F73C-2296-45D9-9205-A12C30944A08 OUT-LAW.COM/The Register Officials from the top of Government to lowly council officers will be given unprecedented powers to access details of every phone call in Britain under laws coming into force tomorrow. The new rules compel phone companies to retain information, however private, about all landline and mobile calls, and make them available to some 795 public bodies and quangos. The move, enacted by the personal decree of Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, will give police and security services a right they have long demanded: to delve at will into the phone records of British citizens and businesses. 25 Oct 2007 14:49:28 GMT http://rinf.com/alt-news/sicence-technology/big-brother-britain-government-and-councils-to-spy-on-all-our-phones/1377/ Jason Lewis F5F63164-D240-4E35-B2BB-40A3C19A630E RINF Highly sensitive information about the religious beliefs, political opinions and even the sex life of Britons travelling to the United States is to be made available to US authorities when the European Commission agrees to a new system of checking passengers. The EC is in the final stages of agreeing a new Passenger Name Record system with the US which will allow American officials to access detailed biographical information about passengers entering international airports. The information sharing system with the US Department of Homeland Security, which updates the previous three-year-old system, is designed to tackle terrorism but civil liberty groups warn it will have serious consequences for European passengers. And it has emerged that both the European parliament and the European data protection supervisor are alarmed at the plan. 25 Oct 2007 14:48:41 GMT http://www.guardian.co.uk/humanrights/story/0,,2132130,00.html Jamie Doward D4081FF4-DCC7-4D32-846B-C87E2AEB12FC The Observer British people are now more spied upon by their political leaders than any other population in the free world, according to an official report. The linkage of databases and surveillance systems mean people are now having their movements tracked, habits profiled and photograph taken hundreds of times a day. The findings, in a report compiled on behalf of Richard Thomas, the information commissioner, raised concerns that Britain is "waking up in a surveillance society". Thomas said: "Many of these schemes are public sector driven, and the individual has no choice over whether or not to take part. People are being scrutinised and having their lives tracked, and are not even aware of it." "They don't know, for instance, that a record is kept of every internet site they visit. They don't realise that when identity cards come in, there will be a record of their movements and every time they have engaged with any public service." 25 Oct 2007 14:45:52 GMT http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article616791.ece Lois Rogers A69B25E8-7754-408F-B647-4B3F112A0977 The Sunday Times The Homeland Security Department scrapped an ambitious anti-terrorism data-mining tool after investigators found it was tested with information about real people without required privacy safeguards. The department has spent $42 million since 2003 developing the software tool known as ADVISE, the Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight and Semantic Enhancement program, at the Lawrence Livermore and Pacific Northwest national laboratories. It was intended for wide use by DHS components, including immigration, customs, border protection, biological defense and its intelligence office. Pilot tests of the program were quietly suspended in March after Congress' Government Accountability Office warned that "the ADVISE tool could misidentify or erroneously associate an individual with undesirable activity such as fraud, crime or terrorism." 25 Oct 2007 14:44:29 GMT http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/09/05/national/w074343D34.DTL Michael J. Sniffen 2E80FC24-8DEB-4B2D-A4F8-F0EA795DB746 AP/SFGate A federal judge struck down parts of the revised USA Patriot Act as unconstitutional Thursday, saying courts must be allowed to supervise cases where the government orders Internet providers to turn over records without telling customers. U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero said the government orders must be subject to meaningful judicial review and that the recently rewritten Patriot Act "offends the fundamental constitutional principles of checks and balances and separation of powers." 25 Oct 2007 14:43:20 GMT http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/06/national/main3239336.shtml FD2FDB62-8445-4578-814B-BCDA20878EB6 CBS/AP Calling call centres is stressful already Lambeth Council has done a deal with KPMG Capita* to use voice recognition software to finger cheats contacting call centres to sort out benefits. Everyone contacting the centre will be told they are being scanned and will then be asked 19 questions."Voice Risk Analysis" will then finger voices it considers suspicious. The pilot is being paid for by the Department of Work and Pensions. The technology supposedly works by detecting "micro-tremors" which, we are told, indicate not only stress but also "when stress is generated by an attempt to deceive". 25 Oct 2007 14:41:49 GMT http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/11/lambeth_council_voice_stress_test/ John Oates 5D326174-0E8B-4C5A-8D7B-01245A1DE877 The Register CityWatcher.com, a provider of surveillance equipment, attracted little notice itself - until a year ago, when two of its employees had glass-encapsulated microchips with miniature antennas embedded in their forearms. The chipping of two workers with RFIDs - radio frequency identification tags as long as two grains of rice, as thick as a toothpick - was merely a way of restricting access to vaults that held sensitive data and images for police departments, a layer of security beyond key cards and clearance codes, the company said. 25 Oct 2007 14:40:03 GMT http://www.chiefengineer.org/content/content_display.cfm/seqnumber_content/3104.htm FFD2F264-3DC0-4CF0-8FE3-90499F2CC47E The Chief Engineer A civil liberties storm erupted yesterday after a senior judge called for the genetic details of every person in Britain, and all visitors to the country, to be added to the national DNA database... A civil liberties storm erupted yesterday after a senior judge called for the genetic details of every person in Britain, and all visitors to the country, to be added to the national DNA database. Critics warned that the "chilling" move would infringe privacy, be hugely impractical and have only a marginal impact on crime. 25 Oct 2007 14:38:07 GMT http://mathaba.net/rss/?x=563126 Nigel Morris 58B46F71-DCEB-42CC-8FF6-FEB1D22E7374 The Independent/Mabatha.net Graeme Paton School uniforms could be fitted with satellite technology to allay parents' fears over child abduction. Trutex, a specialist supplier, is considering putting GPS tracking devices in new clothes amid increasing concerns over safety. The company surveyed 800 parents and found that more than two in five feared their young children were at risk of being snatched. In addition, 59 per cent said they would be "interested" in some form of tracking device being added to school uniforms. However, children rejected the idea of any tracking technology. 25 Oct 2007 14:36:27 GMT http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/21/ngps121.xml Graeme Paton 906380AD-20FB-402F-8F72-73EFB9F4A058 The Daily Telegraph The UK's big five mobile phone firms have switched on a payment system that turns handsets into digital wallets. Called PayForIt, the scheme is designed for those buying goods and services with a value of up to £10. The industry hopes it will be used to pay for ringtones, train tickets, parking fees and eventually as a payment system on web shops and sites. Any cash spent via the scheme will automatically be added on to a customer's phone bill. 25 Oct 2007 14:35:40 GMT http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6764979.stm 78E4D378-5FB1-4586-ADEE-0272A02C9381 BBC 25 Oct 2007 14:34:33 GMT http://www.statewatch.org/news/2007/aug/uk-london-tfl-exemption-case.pdf 78E5F3C5-1D94-44FC-B72B-9FDDB895DD51 The old NuLabour trick of "burying the bad news" in a flurry of announcements which overwhelm the limited analytical resources of the mainstream media and the opposition political parties, is a practice which seems to be continuing under the supposedly "more accountable" style of government under the micro-meddling Prime Minister Gordon Brown. There are no legitimate reasons for these Statutory Instruments, which cover several areas of interest to Spy Blog, to have all been published together just before the long Parliamentary summer recess. 29 Aug 2007 15:01:36 GMT http://p10.hostingprod.com/@spyblog.org.uk/blog/2007/08/a_flurry_of_repressive_labour_government_secondary_legislation_passes_unnoticed_b.html 62920FA8-D624-4F37-A32C-10D3A5F71CE3 SpyBlog UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 508-iii House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE HOME AFFAIRS committee Witnesses: Professor Ross Anderson, Professor of Security Engineering, University of Cambridge, and Chair of the Foundation for Information Policy Research; Mr Pete Bramhall, Manager, Privacy and Identity Research, Hewlett-Packard Laboratories; and Dr Andy Phippen, Lecturer, School of Computing, Communications & Electronics, University of Plymouth, gave evidence. 29 Aug 2007 14:58:09 GMT http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmhaff/uc508-iii/uc50802.htm PROFESSOR ROSS ANDERSON, MR PETE BRAMHALL and DR ANDY PHIPPEN BDFF01E9-89B3-4A5D-8A4B-C2D16A29E518 Parliament.uk The importance of technology to all policy decisions has filtered through to the highest levels of government With the exception of the occasional thunderclap from the NHS National Programme, the past couple of years may have been the calm before the storm for government technology. There have obviously been problems, and not just in the health service ? the Rural Payments Agency, for example, or Jobcentre Plus. But it has been some time since the heyday of the public sector IT disaster. 29 Aug 2007 14:57:11 GMT http://www.vnunet.com/computing/analysis/2196218/moment-truth-government?vnu_lt=vnu_art_related_articles DB3EF266-E271-4CCF-ACF2-B1260DE730F3 Computing As historians tally the incompetence, profligacy and lawless opacity of the Bush administration, a shorthand is already emerging: Katrina, Iraq, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, signing statements and epic debt. Each reference speaks volumes. Another topic may soon head the list: FISA, surveillance or domestic spying. A word or two will settle into the political lexicon to symbolize an assault on civil liberties by an administration with an aggressive disregard for the law. We will be haunted by this for generations. 29 Aug 2007 14:56:03 GMT http://rinf.com/alt-news/opinion/a-scary-assault-on-civil-liberties/1028/ Lance Dickie 81014FCF-B51D-4AC1-ABAF-596290F6327B RINF 29 Aug 2007 14:53:16 GMT http://spod.cx/speedcameras.shtml BB94AD43-0A5F-4A80-A501-25BA6512B094 There is no question that we already live in a Surveillance State, which is creeping , step by step into a Police State. Why can't the mainstream media ask a few simple questions when presented with a Home Office press release, instead of just re-publishing it verbatim ? e.g. the BBC and The Times report, almost word for word the same dismal news about the further extension of ANPR CCTV Surveillance in London: 29 Aug 2007 14:51:40 GMT http://p10.hostingprod.com/@spyblog.org.uk/blog/2007/07/surveillance_state_function_creep_london_congestion_charge_realtime_bulk_data.html AA5D95BF-09CF-4931-B1A6-2585AD9E5A79 SpyBlog cientists have invented a roadside camera that can count the number of people inside a moving vehicle. The technology could be used to catch lone motorists who abuse congestion-easing car-share lanes. These lanes give priority to vehicles carrying at least one passenger, but can be misused by solo drivers who hope they will not be seen. Some even place human-like dummies in the seat beside them to create the illusion of a passenger. 29 Aug 2007 14:49:13 GMT http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/jul/29/motoring.transportintheuk David Smith CCDF5045-5BD6-4772-8625-67934C7383F5 The Observer The Home Office is considering giving the police the power to take a DNA sample on the street, without taking the suspect to a police station, as well as taking samples from suspects in relatively minor offences such as littering, speeding or not wearing a seat belt. The move comes as an official genetics watchdog prepares a public inquiry into the police national DNA database, following concern over the retention of samples from people acquitted of any offence, and disclosure that the database holds DNA records for one in three of British black males.The database is the largest in the world, with 3.4m profiles, more than 5% of the UK population. If the powers are granted, it would expand massively. 29 Aug 2007 14:48:09 GMT http://www.guardian.co.uk/humanrights/story/0,,2139674,00.html Alan Travis 296FCEC4-1C2F-4089-A48B-5461FF6C3C86 The Guardian The move to widen the UK genetic database is yet another example of a relentless desire to monitor every aspect of our everyday lives. An elderly lady called a BBC Wales radio phone-in programme on which I was a guest last week to say that she wouldn't mind in the slightest if she was stopped and ordered to submit to a DNA test when her dog fouled the pavement. 'Everyone should give their DNA to the police,' she said before the discussion was cut short. There wasn't time to talk about the sinister absurdity of sanctioning a law that compels old ladies to offer up a mouth swab, whether they want to or not. No time to state that the Home Office and police are engaged on a programme to introduce mass DNA testing by stealth. No time to wonder at the complete absence of parliamentary debate on this crucial issue of liberty. No time to ask whether we can truly trust the police; or to consider what the relatively new science of genetics may be used for in the future; or to wonder at the alarming disappearance of the liberal reflex in British political life. 29 Aug 2007 14:46:08 GMT http://observer.guardian.co.uk/columnists/story/0,,2142060,00.html Henry Porter 3E6F6307-5EE1-4026-8EE2-AC55D1179FE4 The Observer The future of the computer system that is supposed to keep track of 300,000 offenders a year who are in prison or on probation is in doubt after ministers halted the programme this week. The moratorium follows an admission that the original £234m costing "proved to be optimistic". Unions say the 2004 estimate has now risen to £950m. The rollout to 15 prisons next month and 15 more by the end of the year has been cancelled. 29 Aug 2007 14:45:03 GMT http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,2144640,00.html Alan Travis 0B08F374-2FCD-4EC0-B087-EBFDFEFB74B2 The Guardian The U.S. government's main border control system is plagued by computer security weaknesses, increasing the risk of computer attacks, data thefts, and manipulation of millions of identity records including passport, visa and Social Security numbers and the world's largest fingerprint database, officials said. U.S. officials have called the US-VISIT system a cornerstone of the nation's efforts to stop terrorists at the borders and stanch the flow of illegal immigrants. It automates the collection of fingerprints and digital photographs, and links border control officers to FBI, border enforcement, immigration and State Department watch lists and databases. 29 Aug 2007 14:28:32 GMT http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/02/AR2007080202260.html Spencer S. Hsu 037ED8E7-D62B-4E19-A42B-AB0EE431F3DF Washington Post Motorists who want to evade pay-as-you-drive tolls are being offered a new device that would shield their cars from the satellites used to track their movements. But those tempted to pay £700 for the small metal box, which plugs into a car's cigarette lighter, will find that the Government is already devising ways of catching those who try to cheat the system. 29 Aug 2007 14:26:29 GMT http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/driving/article2217975.ece Ben Webster 45049138-59D8-4F4B-8AAA-052D0FEAF682 The Times History will remember this Government for its assault on liberty In his first statement to Parliament as Prime Minister, Gordon Brown said: “Britain is rightly proud to be the pioneer of the modern liberties of the individual." Little noticed among the cascade of pronouncements about constitutional reform, was a promise to reconsider the ban on unlicensed political protest in the vicinity of the Palace of Westminster. Mr Brown implied that when it came to balancing the need for public order with the right to public dissent, this was a law too far. A commitment to personal liberty is only to be expected from a British prime minister, and especially from a son of the manse brought up in Adam Smith's home town. Yet Mr Brown sat in a Cabinet that did more than any other in recent years to alter the balance in the relationship between the State and the individual. 29 Aug 2007 15:00:26 GMT http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article2106422.ece?openComment=true Philip Johnston CB900B72-DF76-4482-BE74-C5404AAB5AD9 The Times As YouTube faces a $1bn lawsuit, Danny Bradbury looks at how technology to identify copyright material is becoming more sophisticated to protect content owners Computers can recognise faces in pictures, and even (it's often claimed - and disputed) filter out porn images from normal ones. But can they understand what is copyrighted content and what isn't? That's the problem facing engineers at Google-owned video site YouTube. But while the company says it is developing software to do just that, some experts are suggesting that the challenges are more to do with business than technology. 29 Aug 2007 14:25:33 GMT http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/aug/16/guardianweeklytechnologysection.google Danny Bradbury C8772172-F50D-4D45-833A-62C226168F6C The Guardian The Home Office is considering giving the police the power to take a DNA sample on the street, without taking the suspect to a police station, as well as taking samples from suspects in relatively minor offences such as littering, speeding or not wearing a seat belt. The move comes as an official genetics watchdog prepares a public inquiry into the police national DNA database, following concern over the retention of samples from people acquitted of any offence, and disclosure that the database holds DNA records for one in three of British black males.The database is the largest in the world, with 3.4m profiles, more than 5% of the UK population. If the powers are granted, it would expand massively. 2 Aug 2007 16:05:01 GMT http://www.guardian.co.uk/humanrights/story/0,,2139674,00.html Alan Travis F269D531-AF43-426A-9765-700F412BFD30 The Guardian Police are to be given live access to London's congestion charge cameras - allowing them to track all vehicles entering and leaving the zone. Anti-terror officers will be exempted from parts of the Data Protection Act to allow them to see the date, time and location of vehicles in real time. 29 Aug 2007 14:55:22 GMT http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6902543.stm 1144C09E-529F-4D0D-9307-A1ABB9B344F8 BBC Yesterday, Home Office minister Jacqui Smith announced that she had signed a certificate to exempt Transport for London and the Metropolitan Police from certain provisions of the Data Protection Act. The move will facilitate the transfer of bulk data from the TfL's congestion charging cameras, which the Met will be permitted to use when investigating threats to national security. The data - collected using automatic numberplate recognition (ANPR) cameras which encircle the capital - can reveal the movements of all motor vehicles in and out of the city centre. 29 Aug 2007 14:53:48 GMT http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2007/07/18/automatic-numberplate-recognition-function-creep-begins/ C426200F-E7B0-48AC-A1A2-13260608DB76 Open Rights Group The UK's largest visa and immigration company, www.globalvisas.com, is fundamentally challenging Gordon Brown's anti-terrorist strategy, branding it as "inconvenient, highly questionable and not thought through in the slightest". The prime minister has made it clear that biometrics will be collected from all people in the UK, or coming to the UK in future, when applying for a passport or visa. In addition, UK Visas and a department within Customs and Excise will join the Immigration Nationality Directorate under the newly renamed Borders & Immigration Agency as a supposed effective measure against terrorism. However, the company believes that no terror attack would have been prevented had the UK held biometric data on the perpetrators. Director Liam Clifford says: "This is yet another inconvenience to law-abiding British citizens, and genuine business travellers and tourists coming to our country." 2 Aug 2007 15:58:33 GMT http://rinf.com/alt-news/surveillance-big-brother/biometrics-slammed-by-uk%E2%80%99s-largest-visa-and-immigration-company/861/ 134F09EA-EE32-4625-9F83-2571639E84DF RINF An intelligent CCTV system is being installed at one of the country's busiest stations to protect the network from terrorists and vandals. More than a year after trials were announced by Alistair Darling, the former Transport Secretary, the Daily Telegraph has learned that the sophisticated technology will be located at Clapham Junction Station. The system has been developed by Agent Vi, a company which is responsible for the installation of 20 stations in Israel. 2 Aug 2007 15:56:42 GMT http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/27/ncctv127.xml David Millward E743B28A-7E40-4CE3-BCC3-C377D3603B85 Daily Telegraph The details of journeys taken by millions of motorists are to be handed to police under a government “Big Brother" plan to use road pricing technology in the fight against crime. Police would be given instant access to number plate data from “smart" cameras monitoring congestion in cities and the movement of traffic on Britain's major roads. The proposal to pass to police a huge amount of data tracking individual journeys has caused a split between the Home Office and the Department for Transport, which fears that it will set back plans for road pricing. 29 Aug 2007 14:50:30 GMT http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article2093557.ece Richard Ford A0B64EC2-FCCB-4E7D-835C-70704C9F829D The Times Sophisticated closed circuit television camera systems is set to be introduced at a number of British airports, it emerged last night. Negotiations are understood to have started for installation of technology known as Video Analytics - the use of computers to monitor CCTV images. 2 Aug 2007 15:55:31 GMT http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/05/nterror605.xml David Millward 1BCBC488-8B64-4112-B05E-BAEF5E060C64 Daily Telegraph Gordon Brown called today for greater cooperation across Europe in sharing information on suspected terrorists. Following talks with Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, Mr Brown said they wanted any information taken from biometric visas to be shared among members of all 27 EU states. "I hope other countries will join in making that possible," he said. 2 Aug 2007 15:53:45 GMT http://www.24dash.com/news/57/24394/index.htm Ian Morgan 86C8D9CF-4123-4C8F-A099-786850D43235 24dash.com History will record what we, here in the early decades of the information age, did to foster freedom, liberty and democracy. Did we build information technologies that protected people's freedoms even during times when society tried to subvert them? Or did we build technologies that could easily be modified to watch and control? It's bad civic hygiene to build an infrastructure that can be used to facilitate a police state.