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Calls For New Laws To Restrict Use Of Surveillance Information
The ABD is supporting the brave stance taken by Hampshire Deputy Chief Constable Ian Readhead against the rampant expansion of the surveillance society, together with suggested limits on the use of DNA records and a review of the use of speed cameras.
Whilst surveillance information can be very useful in the investigation of serious crimes, speed cameras have shown how the automation of identity recognition linked to law enforcement leads inevitably to the mass criminalisation of the general population, and to enforcement that is increasingly irrelevant to the stated purpose of the law.
Where motoring offences lead, due to the ease of number plate recognition, the rest will follow as automated face recognition combined with increased electronic tracking makes the pedestrian as identifiable as a vehicle.
"DCC Readhead, unlike some of his senior police colleagues, understands the concept of policing by consent in a democracy, and recognises that the powers of the police should be limited," said ABD spokesman Nigel Humphries. "Surveillance is here to stay - the technology cannot be un-invented - what is needed are robust laws which only allow the information to be accessed by the police when they are investigating a specific crime."
Such laws would prevent automated use of surveillance information for mass prosecutions.
This has always been the case with telephone records - they remain the property of the phone company until subpoenad in a criminal investigation. All other forms of surveillance data should be the same. David Blunkett says that surveillance should do no more than a police officer would if present.
If he means that, he should support this proposal, as it is the police officer who should decide who is arrested not the surveillance camera.
Police Put 100,000 Innocent Children On Dna Database By James Slack
Are police are targeting for arrest youngsters who have done nothing wrong, simply to get their hands on their DNA?
The number of innocent children placed on the Government's vast DNA database for life has quadrupled in the past year to more than 100,000, it has emerged.
The astonishing increase, which follows a controversial change to the law, was described by opposition MPs as an "extremely sinister development".
It will fuel concerns that police are targeting for arrest youngsters who have done nothing wrong, simply to get their hands on their DNA.
Terri Dowty, director of the pressure group Action on Rights for Children, said: "These are shocking statistics. These children will be on the database for the rest of their lives.
"Whenever their DNA is found at a crime scene, they will have to be prepared to justify themselves. We are turning thousands of innocent children into lifelong suspects."
The revelation a year ago that the details of 24,000 innocent youngsters had been stored on the DNA database brought widespread alarm.
But research by Action on Rights for Children and the pressure group GeneWatch UK, using Home Office figures, reveals that - far from being deterred - police have accelerated sharply the rate at which they are gathering samples from children.
In the past 12 months, the samples of 81,000 children convicted of no crime have been added to the database, which can be checked against any crime scene. It takes the total to 105,000.
Since April 2004, anyone aged ten or above who is arrested in England or Wales can have their DNA and fingerprints taken without their consent, or that of their parents.
The DNA samples are all kept permanently. The computerised DNA profiles are also kept permanently on the DNA database, even if the person arrested is never charged or is acquitted.
The law was not fully implemented in 2004/05 but last year it was introduced across the country. These figures reveal for the first time the astonishing impact of the move.
Around 80,000 innocent children are likely to be added to the database every 12 months, as that is the average number of children arrested for the first time each year but never convicted. Parents can appeal to have their child's DNA removed but this is at the discretion of chief constables.
Very few samples are removed, with the rest stored for life.
Police say those who have had their DNA taken include two schoolgirls charged with criminal damage after drawing chalk on a pavement and a child in Kent who removed a slice of cucumber from a tuna mayonnaise sandwich and threw it at another youngster.
Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: "This is an extremely sinister development. One hundred thousand innocent children have their DNA data stored by stealth. This is a big move towards the end of the presumption of innocence for our youth."
Dr Helen Wallace, director of GeneWatch UK, said: "Anyone with access to the DNA database can use these children's DNA profiles to trace where they have been, or who they are related to.
"Do we really trust the Home Office not to misuse this information and to safeguard it from others who may want to infiltrate the system?"
The number of innocent people on the database, including the 105,000 children, is one million - 25 per cent of the four million who have their DNA stored.
It is the world's largest database and has raised concern that Britain is lurching towards a "surveillance society".
Criminologists have warned that, in order to make policing simpler, officers are targeting for arrest those they see as potential troublemakers. By making arrests for a minor offence such as criminal damage, they can take the DNA of a group of youngsters at the same time.
No charges need to be made, but the samples can be stored.
A Home Office spokesman said last night: "Taking a DNA sample and fingerprints from those arrested for a recordable offence and detained in a police station, including juveniles aged ten to 17, is now part of the normal process within a police custody suite.
"Those who are innocent have nothing to fear from providing a sample and retaining this evidence is no different to recording other forms of information such as photographs and witness statements."
Ed] This last statement is the usual banal cop-out and ignores people’s right to privacy. George Orwell wrote “1984” in 1949 how prophetic he was.
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Lords Constitution Committee to investigate surveillance society - call for evidence
The House of Lords Constitution Committee is calling for evidence into the constitutional implications of the surveillance society. The are particularly interested in the "constitutional implications of the collection and use of surveillance and other personal data by the State and (insofar as they can be used by the State) private companies, particularly with regard to the impact on the relationship between citizen and state".
The committee are requesting submissions of up to 1500 words by 8th June. More details can be found at www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/CFE%20Final.doc
What just happened?
ID cards cost report published at last - shows £1 billion increase
The government finally released the latest ID cards six-monthly cost report earlier today as the nation's media was focused on the retirement of Tony Blair.
Initial analysis of the figures reveals that the costs of the scheme have risen by nearly a billion pounds. The report was due on April 9th but the Home Office it seems chose to wait for a good day to bury bad news.
See www.identitycards.gov.uk/downloads/2007-05-10CostReport.pdf
Tribunal rules information on ID scheme must be made public
An Information Tribunal has ruled that the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) Gateway Reviews on the identity cards programme must be published. The reviews were requested under the Freedom of Information Act by SpyBlog
(www.spyblog.org.uk) back in January 2005.
The request was an attempt to get some of the background information on the Home Office's Identity Cards Programme, which should have been made public before the Identity Cards Act 2006 was debated in Parliament.
In March Peter Gershon, the former civil servant, claimed that publication would seriously undermine the confidentiality essential to the success of the Gateway review scheme. The OGC has been given 28 days to publish the reviews.
The decision of the tribunal can be read at http://tinyurl.com/2deaot
Information Commissioner gives evidence to Home Affairs Committee
Last week the Information Commissioner gave evidence to the Home Affairs Committee as part of their inquiry into 'A surveillance society?'. The session mostly focused on store cards and what they perceive as the "public's insatiable demand" for CCTV. There was some discussion of data sharing and the Child Index.
Watch the session at http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Player/?Meeting=7218
Read the transcript at http://tinyurl.com/2g6vqb
Read the evidence submitted by the information commissioner at http://tinyurl.com/2owudn (pdf)
LSE Identity Project release new reports
The London School of Economics (LSE) Identity Project group have released a couple of new reports on their website. The first is their evidence to the Home Affairs Committee into "A Surveillance society?". The second is an academic paper on 'How the UK is confusing identity fraud with other policy agendas'.
Both reports can be found at http://is2.lse.ac.uk/idcard/
German eDabs won't be archived
The two fingerprints due to be included in German ePassports from this November will not be permanently archived.
The Christian Democrat federal government wanted the prints to be stored and made accessible to the police, but it had to withdraw that clause on 10 May after the Social Democrats threatened to block the legislation.
Police will have direct online access to passport photos - but only in an emergency and only if the passport office is closed at the time.
"ID" in the news
Cost of ID cards rockets by £840m - The Guardian 10/5/07
The official estimated cost of the controversial national identity card scheme has soared in the last six months by an extra £840m to a total of £5.75bn, according to new Home Office figures published today
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,2076594,00.html
Home Office accused of burying bad news as ID cards cost soars - Daily Mail 10/5/07
The projected 10-year cost of the controversial ID card scheme has risen by £400 million in the last six months, it was revealed today. http://tinyurl.com/2kg9ol
DVLA set to lead ID cards scheme - South Wales Evening Post 9/5/07
Swansea's DVLA could be at the forefront of the Government's controversial ID cards scheme.
The Morriston-based Government agency is looking for someone to help create a new system which can deal with up to 50 million picture images. The pilot system would be able to search for and match images. http://tinyurl.com/3dywet
NHS upgrade creates false patient records - Computer Weekly 8/5/07
A software upgrade under the NHS's National Programme for IT (NPfIT) has led to hundreds of incorrect duplicate patient records being created every day at NHS sites in Greater Manchester. http://tinyurl.com/2kxa7l
ID card will be needed to vote, says UK election watchdog - The Register 30/4/07
Unexpected support for ID cards has come from Electoral Commission chairman Sam Younger, who has told the Times that photo ID should be required at polling stations, and that if (or, in the view of the current Government, when) ID cards become compulsory they would "undoubtedly" be applied in elections. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/30/younger_id_card_voting/
The Bully A.K.A. ‘Dr’ John Reid Gives Blair His Secret Stalker Squad
There are fears that doctors could be used to lock up terror suspects without trail; a bit like fascist governments tend to do, with the Government having established a shadowy new national anti-terrorist unit to protect VIPs, with the power to detain suspects indefinitely using mental health laws.
The revelation is set to reignite the row over the Government's use of draconian measures to deal with terror suspects amid accusations they are abusing human rights.
The Fixated Threat Assessment Centre (FTAC) was quietly set up last year to identify individuals who pose a direct threat to VIPs including the Prime Minister, the Cabinet and the Royal Family.
It was given sweeping powers to check more than 10,000 suspects' files to identify mentally unstable potential killers and stalkers with a fixation against public figures.
The team's psychiatrists and psychologists then have the power to order treatment - including forcibly detaining suspects in secure psychiatric units.
[Contrary to the mental Health Act 1983 which only allows for a doctor of medicine or a court of law to order such].
Using these powers, the unit can legally detain people for an indefinite period without trial, criminal charges or even evidence of a crime being committed and with very limited rights of appeal.
But the new unit uses the police to identify suspects and raises questions about why thousands of mentally ill individuals have been allowed back into the community - including some who have attacked and killed members of the public - while VIPs are being given special protection.
Scotland Yard runs the shadowy unit and refuses to discuss how many suspects have been forcibly hospitalised by the team because of "patient confidentiality", so how come coppers are reading medical files?
At least one terror suspect; allegedly linked to the 7/7 bomb plot and a suicide bombing in Israel, has already been held under the Mental Health Act, later absconding from the hospital and his whereabouts are unknown.
The existence of FTAC as part of the Metropolitan Police's specialist operations department which oversees anti-terrorist investigations and royal and diplomatic protection, was slipped out in the fine print of a Home Office report.
The report states that FTAC is a counter-terrorism unit saying: "We aim to make the UK a harder target for terrorists by maintaining effective and efficient protective security for public figures."
The purpose of the centre is "to evaluate and manage the risk posed to prominent people by those who engage in inappropriate or threatening communications or behaviours in the context of abnormally intense preoccupations, many of which arise from psychotic illness."
The Mental Health Act requires two doctors or psychiatrists to approve someone's forcible detention for treatment under Section 3, Mental Health Act 1983.
Section 3, MHA 1983 allows a patient to be held for up to six months which can then be renewed for a further six months.
Patients are then reviewed every year to determine if they can be released.
FTAC's senior forensic psychiatrist Dr David James, who has made a study of attacks on British and European politicians by people suffering pathological fixations, is qualified to order such a detention, as are other members of his team; which is perverse as it seems most are not doctors of medicine.
Also on the staff is Robert Halsey, a consultant forensic clinical psychologist; not a doctor of medicine, who is a specialist in risk assessment.
The centre, based at a secret Central London location, has a staff of four police officers, two civilian researchers, a forensic psychiatrist, a forensic psychologist and a forensic community mental health nurse.
Job descriptions make it clear they implement "interventions".
Human rights activists fear the team may be being used as a way to detain suspected terrorists without having to put evidence before the courts.
It also comes amid a continuing row over proposed mental health legislation which will make it easier to 'section' someone deemed a threat to the public.
Last night human rights group Liberty said the secret unit represented a new threat to civil liberties.
Policy director Gareth Crossman said: "There is a grave danger of this being used to deal with people where there is insufficient evidence for a criminal prosecution.
"This blurs the line between medical decisions and police actions. If you are going to allow doctors to take people's liberty away, they have to be independent.
That credibility is undermined when the doctors are part of the same team as the police.
"This raises serious concerns. Firstly, that you have a unit that allows police investigation to lead directly to people being sectioned without any kind of criminal proceedings.
Secondly, it is being done under the umbrella of anti-terrorism at a time when the Government is looking at ways to detain terrorists without putting them on trial."
FTAC is set up with a £500,000-a-year budget from the Home Office and Department of Health. NHS documents say: "It is a prototype for future joint services."
Few Whitehall officials seemed aware of the Centre's existence.
Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said: "The Government is trying to bring in a wider definition of mental disorder and is resisting exclusions which ensure that people cannot be treated as mentally disordered on the grounds of their cultural, political or religious beliefs.
"When you hear they are also setting up something like this police unit, it raises questions about quite what their intentions are.
"The use of mental health powers of detention should be confined to the purposes of treatment. But the Government wants to be able to detain someone who is mentally disordered even when the treatment would have no benefit.
Combined with the idea that someone could be classed as mentally ill on the grounds of their religious beliefs, it is a very worrying scenario."
A Home Office spokeswoman said there was "nothing sinister" about the unit or its role in counter-terrorism.
She said: "It comes under the remit of royal and diplomatic protection and is administered by that part of the Home Office. Psychiatric investigations are undertaken by psychiatric professionals only. Police officers do not assess people with mental health issues. [So what about section 136 MHA then?]
“The police provide the intelligence to ensure that psychiatrists have all the information available to make an assessment. This is done not only to protect public figures but also to protect the person fixated with the public figure."
But is this not the thin end of the wedge how long will it be before any political activist or dissenter from this government’s non-democratic actions and thinking is re-classed as a terrorist?
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