Police have used anti-terrorism legislation to stop more than 60,000 people near railway lines between October 2007 and September 2008.
The figures, unveiled by the Liberal Democrats, show that a further 60,000 people were stopped using stop-and-search powers.
There is a wide interest in railways in this country and to stop someone simply for taking a photograph of a train is crazy. Using anti-terrorism legislation as the vehicle for this is utter madness and an abuse of police power.
Barcode Nation is writing to the Home Office demanding an explanation for this abuse of power, not to mention the waste of police time and money.
From The Register:
Almost one in ten records within HMRC’s framework database contain errors, according to figures unveiled by Conservative MP Justine Greening.
The frameworks database only contains quite simple information - first, second and surname, title, sex, data of birth, address and National Insurance number. Which begs the question of how many errors more complicated government records contain. It costs £7.5m a year to maintain it.
Even more worrying of course is the government’s continued enthusiasm for more and more databases, and the ID card scheme, which makes such errors ever more damaging and difficult to correct.
Following yesterday’s post on the child surveillance tool ContactPoint, comes the news that a London borough are to encourage parents to keep their children’s details secret.
If the communications initiative by the Borough of Kensington and Chelsea catches on, the Government will come under serious pressure to abandon the costly and controversial database.
Merrick Cockell, the leader of the Conservative-run council, said: “We have a variety of concerns, starting with the fact that parents and carers really don’t know about ContactPoint. There’s also the fact that this Government’s record on data loss is phenomenally awful.
“This is a national database, starting with young children, but you can just see this building into something else.
“We think parents should be able to have a view on it and if they think their children should be shielded, we will take that very seriously.”
Barcode Nation will write to Birmingham City Council asking them to consider adopting a similar communications campaign.
As “Auld Lang Syne” rings out around the world, stop for a moment to take a look at what horrors are in store over the next 12 months.
We have the ludicrously expensive ID card monster crawling into action. The National Identity Register, the backbone for the cards. The DNA database, soundly slammed by Europe. The NHS “Connecting for Health” systems, with all its delays and cost overruns to date. And in my opinion the most concerning of them all, ContactPoint.
This system intends to “help services work together more effectively on the frontline to meet the needs of children, young people and their families”. What it does in practice is contain details of your child’s name, address, date of birth, parents name and contact details, school details and GP details. Recent media coverage of failures in child support services will no doubt strengthen the calls for this system. But we must not lose sight of the fundamental right to privacy that these surveillance tools are slowly eroding.
The one shining beacon of hope this year comes on 28 February in the form of the Convention on Modern Liberty. Mark that date in your diary, join the mailing list, join the Facebook group, spread the word. It will be our big chance to make our voices heard.
Stand up and be counted, before it’s too late.
According to today’s Guardian, the private sector will be asked to manage and run a communications database that will keep track of everyone’s calls, emails, texts and internet use. This latest step towards a full surveillance state will be revealed in a consultation paper to be published next month by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.
The article hints at a £12bn cost with the private sector involvement being a potential cost-saver. A cost-saver! What price the security of our personal and private data? Keeping a database of this magnitude safe and secure would be an enormous and in my opinion, impossible task - far outweighing any imaginable benefits - and they are sketchy to say the least.
Who wants to live in a country where a private firm and the Government will know that I rang my Mum at 11am on New Years Eve. What business is this of Government? ABSOLUTELY NONE.
AT ALL.
Talking to the Guardian, Sir Ken Macdonald (former director of public prosecutions) warned it would prove a “hellhouse” of personal private information:
”It would be a complete readout of every citizen’s life in the most intimate and demeaning detail. No government of any colour is to be trusted with such a roadmap to our souls.”
Coming towards the end of the year I felt it appropriate to comment on where we are with the battle against the UK’s surveillance state. However, Henry Porter of the Guardian hits the perfect note in his Christmas Day blog post which is essential reading for all.
The advance made in Britain in 2008 is that hundreds of thousands of people – maybe millions, given the sudden concern of columnists on the Sun and Daily Mail about the police state – have become aware of the threat of an over mighty state. Just a year ago, people who talked about our slow descent into an authoritarian wilderness were dismissed as the paranoid fringe. Now members of all political parties, ethnic groups and generations have become concerned about the construction of the database state, the government’s sidelining of parliament and the remorseless attack on personal liberty.
The Liberal Democrats have uncovered figures that show nearly 50,000 Government security passes have been lost or stolen since 2001 - that’s 16 per day. Over 37,000 of these were from the Ministry of Defence.
A MoD spokesman said: “There are approximately 108,000 personnel in the Armed Forces and the number of lost/stolen ID cards for 2008 equates to less than 5 per cent of this total.
Here at Barcode Nation, we think 5% is still an unacceptable amount!
How can we trust this Government with our personal data when its own departments are so careless with theirs?
Researchers have uncovered a weakness in the internet’s digital certificate system that allows them to forge counterfeit credentials needed to impersonate virtually any website that relies on the widely used security measure.
More than 200 Playstation 3’s were used in this proof-of-concept attack that throws the issue of internet security wide open.
The name of the New Jersey rockers could take on a whole new meaning if a new DNA dating website becomes popular. Take a look at the sales pitch on the site:
ScientificMatch uses your DNA to maximize the chances of finding chemistry—actual, physical chemistry—with your matches. We look at your personal values to help you find a soul mate. And our in-depth background checks provide one of the safest—and most honest—places for your search.
After extensive reading it seems all this boils down to the way our brains respond to various scents - human pheromones. The DNA matching process attempts to pick a partner with the scent most likely to, shall we say, push the right buttons.
There’s a big assumption here - the secret to all good relationships is sexual attraction. ALERT! Anyone with half a brain knows there are all manner of factors that affect relationships. Not least:
- Shared interests
- Goals in life
- Jobs
- Families
- Locations
- Social circles
- Upbringing
I’d warn anyone off spending hundreds or thousands of dollars/pounds on an exercise such as this.
