Nearly a quarter (22 per cent) of UK employees admit to having illegally accessed sensitive data such as salary details from their firms employer’s IT systems. More than half (54 per cent) of 2,200 adults polled during a YouGov survey said they’d forgo any scruples to do the same, given half a chance, according to a Microsoft sponsored survey that points to a culture of internal snooping and casual identity theft in offices across Britain […]

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Presumably it is safe assumption that 22% of people accessing NIR data will use their privileges to have a quick check on people they know (and seemingly 33% if they are unknown) – even without the incentive of payment by criminals to pass on such information.

Of course if you aren’t registered then there’s no record to snaffle.

Local planning authorities are giving identity criminals “all they need” by posting applicants’ personal details online, according to the UK’s fraud prevention service Cifas

The organisation said planning authorities were publishing applicants’ personal details, including names addresses, telephone and signatures, on the web as part of their planning consultations.

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What more can be said?

The NIR setup will have the same flaw – a fraudster (or their agent) will be able to access personal details across a network, just replace signatures for ‘unchangeable biometric information’ and it there you have it, a recipe for disaster.

The ONLY insurance is not to register on the NIR, neither intentionally nor through renewal of linked documents (i.e. your passport) after the next couple of months.

istraight Japanese Hair Straightening System

YOUR HEALTHY SHINY HAIR IS OUR MAIN CONCERN.
Just imagine for a moment if you will, after your shower there is no need to fight your curly hair straight. You don’t have to avoid humidity like a Vampire avoids the sun. You can dance around a garden sprinkler, walk away with wet hair that dries straight and frizz free. Our Client Roxanne told us she has waited for this moment for 48 years. She still cannot believe it – she has straight and almost maintenance free hair.
Keep in mind that her hair was not pulled straight with a brush and a blow dryer. We simply blew some slightly warm air from the top of her head until her hair was dry. No pulling and straightening anymore for her for about six month’s. After the 5 hour process we asked Roxanne: Was it worth it for you? She said “You bet it’s worth it” It’s worth every penny and every minute”

Read more about it!

[…]

Our Japanese Contact had returned from Japan in April 2002. His mission was to comb the entire hair industry for the best straightening product that is in existence today.
And he struck Gold.
At Hair Café we now offer the “iStraight” Japanese Straightening System which is gentler than other systems. “iStraight” is most effective on curly virgin hair although it can be used on color treated hair. The hair’s porosity must be evaluated before treatment. We do not recommend the process for African America hair that had a Sodium hydroxide (Lye) in the past.
That means your hair can be straightened permanently even if you have Highlights or colored hair. As you can see on our website. It also means that you can add Highlights or Hair Color after the hair has been straightened making it the safest Straightening System available today. After all, your healthy and shiny hair is our main concern!
Please not that using the ReactionB3 conditioner is an absolutely essential home care regimen that goes along with the Japanese straightening process.

If the government can benefit, it must be kept secret
If the businesses can benefit, it must be tolerated
If the middle class can benefit, it must be licensed
If everyone can benefit, it must be taxed
If a minority can benefit, it must be criminalised

Hairarchives

NIR electronic records are two years late

By Nicholas Timmins, Public Policy Editor
Published: May 29 2009 21:54 | Last updated: May 29 2009 21:54

Plans to give all 70m residents in England a full electronic biometric record are running at least two to two-and-a-half years late, Lord Dithup, the Home Office minister who oversees the project, has confirmed.

He also admitted that the full cost of the programme was likely to be nearer £20bn than the widely quoted figure of £6.2bn. The latter figure covered only the national contracts for the systems’ basic infrastructure and software applications, he said.

The Passpoert Service and other ‘clients’ of the NIR would, however, spend billions more on training staff, buying PCs and upgrading and assimilating existing systems over the decade-long programme, Lord Dithup said in an interview with the Financial Times.

The extra money did not mean the programme would cost more than expected, he said, but instead reflected the full expense of switching existing IT spending from outdated systems to the new ones.

The delays to the electronic biometric record, which mean it may not be in place until early 2011, come in part because of delays in providing the software, which is being developed by *Soft and other companies.

But the record’s introduction is also being stalled by a fierce and unresolved dispute within the Home Office over what could be included on the National Identity Register, and how citizens data should be accessed. Some see it as threatening to “derail” the programme.

Lord Dithup said some parts of the programme “are going pretty well and pretty much to time”.

But others, he admitted, “are going more slowly than we would otherwise like”. The government has had to “re-group” over the national summary record, meant to make patients’ data available “wherever and whenever” it is needed.

etc. (all below becuase the FT requires registration and is unreasonably slow to load).

Today it’s the NHS tomorrow it will be the NIR – and you can be sure that the attendant databses held by the police, DVLA and (groan) the NHS again, will also require costly overbudget upgrades when everything is updated to access the NIR. Not just a useless moneypit the NIR will be a blackhole of government spending, unremittingly sucking everything related to its operation into its centre.

Or perhaps:

Winners feel the pain from billion-pound contracts

The programme originally proposed that the summary record would include major diagnoses, operations and recent tests, as well as current medications and allergies. It was also proposed that patient data would be added on an “opt out” model, implying that consent to have the basic data added would be assumed, but with patients retaining the right to opt out.

Ministers recently agreed, however, that the initial upload of data, in pilot schemes to be run next year, would cover only current prescriptions, allergies and contra-indications, and that patients would then be asked if they were happy to have other information added.

But the British Medical Association family doctors’ committee has recently rejected that proposal, saying patients’ consent should be sought even before their medications are added to the summary record.

The programme had reached “a pivotal point”, Lord Warner said, and with many hospital doctors favouring a much richer summary record, “the medical profession have to come together” to agree on what data will be included and how it is added.

On 22 May the German Constitutional Court has declared illegal under the German Constitution the practice of screening data across several private and public databases in order to find potential terrorists (“sleepers”). Several federal states will now have to change their police laws. The decision does not make data screening (“Rasterfahndung”, literally: “grid investigation”, usual transliterations: “dragnet investigation” or “data trawl”) completely illegal, but binds it to very narrow conditions. The measure is still legal for investigations in specific criminal cases, as it was used against the left-wing guerrilla RAF in the 1970s, when the “Rasterfahndung” was invented. But for crime prevention purposes, it can only be done in the presence a concrete danger for the lives or liberties of persons or for the existence of the Federal Republic of Germany or a federal state (Land). This requires factual indicators for an imminent attack. A general threat condition or foreign tensions like after 9/11 2001 are not sufficient.

The future UK Bill of Rights will similarly protect the population against State-sponsored data trawling, of course it will in fact go further than the German Constitution as the Bill of Rights will only contain attestations of our Rights and not the rug pulling of their Constitution.

Even so you can see that a Constitution that protects peoples rights ‘works’ when the State isn’t allowed to disregard it into oblivion (c.f. USA)

As their website seems to be unresponsive I shall blockquoth the rest for you below (at least read the very last line.), incidentally there is another article about German Greens are questioning the legality of the EU directive on mandatory retention of communications traffic data, you should subscribe!

subscribe by e-mail
To: edri-news-request@edri.org
Subject: subscribe.

The Federal Police Agency (Bundeskriminalamt) had coordinated such screenings, in cooperation with the state-level police authorities after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. Universities, private companies, private security firms, public transport institutions, facility providers, municipal authorities, and the Federal Register of Foreign Residents were required to submit comprehensive information they had on anybody matching a set of criteria (male, aged between 18 and 40, student or former student, country of origin mainly Muslim) to the state police agencies. The latter did a screening run for matches across the different submitted databases that combined included more than 8 million people. The 31 988 hits were stored in a central file called “sleepers” and again screened by the Federal Police Agency against a database that included up to 300 000 persons who held a pilot license, were supposed to be dangerous, or matched some other criteria. The remaining several thousand persons (matches) was manually reviewed by the state police agencies. The whole exercise did not lead to a single terrorist suspect or prosecution.

The plaintiff, a Morrocan citizen who studied in Germany in 2001, argued that his right for informational self-determination was breached, that the screening was an especially severe breach of fundamental rights because it took place unbeknownst to the people affected, that it was not proportionate because of the lack of factual indicators for an imminent terrorist attack in Germany, and that the criteria were discriminating him and fellow Muslims on the basis of religion. The lower courts had overturned his arguments.

The official data protection commissioners, the opposition parties Greens, Liberals and Socialists, and civil liberties groups applauded the court decision and demanded an immediate stop of plans for similar measures like communications traffic data retention, license-plate screening, or the creation of new investigative powers for the Federal Police Agency for the prevention of crimes. A spokesperson of the federal Ministry of the Interior said that in international terrorism, there was only a thin line between a general and a concrete threat condition, making it difficult to apply the decision. The Bavarian Minister of the Interior, Günther Beckstein, called the decision “a black day for the effective fight against terrorism in Germany.” The association of student representatives, which had supported the plaintiff, demanded a “personal apology” from the responsible authorities for the illegal and unconstitutional discrimination of foreign and Muslim students in Germany.

Up to eleven federal states will now have to change their police laws and criminal procedures acts. The decision will also have an impact on the discussion about the legality of mandatory communications data retention in Germany. The Constitutional Court explicitly re-emphasised in the reasons given for the judgement the “strict prohibition, beyond statistical purposes, of the storage of personally identifiable data on stock.” (“auf Vorrat”). “Vorratsdatenspeicherung” – literally: “data storage on stock” – is the German term for data retention.

The (seemingly much more beautiful) DS Lite is going to be released in a month in the UK. This may mark a long awaited return to thumb joggling! And on my own console, ha!!!

Nintendo will release the DS Lite in the UK on 23 June, the videogames pioneer said today. The redesigned handheld console will set British buyers back £100. It will cost €150 (£102) in continental Europe, the company added.

Taking a lead from Apple’s iPod, Nintendo said the DS Lite will be available at launch in two colours: glossy black and shiny white.

…
Reg

BIFF!

Bush bars arms sales to Venezuela and cuddles up to Libya to secure the oil stream

BAM!

The Iranian Oil Bourse starts trading (in Euros).

BASH!

Venezuela decides to trade all oil in Euros and buy arms from Russia/China

BLAM!

The US adds Venezuela to its list of ‘Rogue States’

KERSPLAT!

Venezuela suspends exports of oil to the US pending settlement of accounts in Euros

PLAMM!

US invades Iran tries to depose Chavez, Russia has had enough and fights to defend the Oil Bourse. Latin American countries put an embargo on US trade.

BOOM!

The end. Of something.

The title of this evening’s lecture is “Human Rights Under Attack” and 2005 is a particularly appropriate vantage point from which to view this topic.

[…]

But, of course, 2005 also marks 5 years since the Human Rights Act came into force. One of the most important pieces of constitutional legislation that any Government has introduced, It remains one of the government’s proudest achievements.

Yet if we are so proud of our record on human rights why, some of you will ask, why have we sought to distance ourselves from the Human Rights Act? Why have we not done more to push forward the new rights and the settlement it envisages?

And if we are so proud of our record on human rights why do we not do more to defend it from its critics, from reactionary voices like the Daily Mail which wrote last weekend of:

” Lottery money given to prostitutes but not the Samaritans… Gypsies allowed to breach planning laws… Human rights madness is destroying common sense, decency and democracy itself”

And why, some of you may ask, if we are so proud of our record on human rights, do we seem through our response to the threat of terrorism so intent on undermining the very human rights culture we were instrumental in bringing about?

I have not come here to dodge these accusations, as serious and uncomfortable as they are. We need to tackle them head on – and I will before this night is out.

We’ve heard all this so many times, I know, but it is easy to forget just how important this legislation was. Recall what the then Home Secretary, Jack Straw, said at the Bill ‘s second reading. He said:

” This is the first major Bill on human rights for more than 300 years. It will strengthen representative and democratic government. It does so by enabling citizens to challenge more easily actions of the state if they fail to match the standards set by the European convention. The Bill will thus create a new and better relationship between the Government and the people.”

[…]

Critically, these rights are for everybody. Nobody is more entitled to them than anybody else. They do not depend on popularity, or on background, or social class, or place of birth. You have only to be in this country to qualify for human rights protection under the Act. To add other qualifications is to claim that one person is more human than another – something akin to the evils we fought in the Second World War and fight against today.

[…]

David Lammey in 2005.

Of course you know why I post this, and they can only get away with this talk because the Human Rights Act is a bureaucratic concoction which tells the people what rights the State is prepared to uphold on their behalf. How quaint. A true Bill of Rights (as suggested by my Right Honourable Fellow) would be an attestation of rights by the people telling the State what its remit and duties to the people are. No Statesman worthy of the name would dare try to undo that sort of Bill.

The ACLU has confimation that the US DHS has been sharing PNR information from EU flights despite assurances it would not do so.

With an NIR linked passport it will become possible for agencies such as the DHS to request NIR (i.e. 2011 Census, etc.) information on ‘suspected individuals’ via their passport details gathered at border controls and this is followed up by an NIR request either directly or via SOCA. Say for instance if you do not stay at the address they requested you provide (maybe because it was a poor hotel, or your hosts take you on a surprise road trip, …).

Nevermind the fact that these people will likely be keeping the data they can glean from passports anyway. So information sufficient to access your NIR entry (in perpetuity) will be in the hands of whichever agency the DHS wants to share it with, beyond the scrutiny and accountability of UK data protection laws. There will be people in these agencies (and DHS) willing to sell such information and the cloak of government secrecy (in the name of security) will help them.

These are just the people you’re asked to trust!!!

Okay as i mentioned earlier it is perfectly feasible to keep personal taxation at the local level, this would allow a more locally accountable spending of tax revenue etc, etc.
Now what if we increased that decentralisation further and said that individuals could offset direct contributions to local services against their tax. To keep things simple we don’t do this for basic rate tax payers. But for other tax bands you could allow a third-to-a-half of the tax burden to directly fund local services. To prevent fraudulent charities springing up this would be from a list audited (but not prescribed) by local government.

Why bother? Because such an approach could engender a philanthropic mindset amongst the majority of the population, people would be able to determine how their taxes are spent i.e. tax spending becomes more democratic. Service providers will become directly accountable to tax payers who will can legitimately demand to see how their tax money is used – if it is spent well the services are likely to get similar contributions the next year if not the money will likely go elsewhere.
Once you get people into a philanthropic mindset when they have small amounts of money to allocate to services and if this is seen as an opportunity not a burden then I believe they will be more likely to pursue such philanthropy (bolstering services that they may have previously allocated money to) if they become more affluent.

And why would common philanthropy be advantageous – because dispersed spending increases the likelihood of money being spent productively on services, rather than on schemes which bolster the State and its networks of favoured contractors and consultancies.

Look at this page showing UK government expenditure and Tax Revenue;
You will see that expenditure that is necessarily financed centrally amounts to only about a fifth of the total. Even if you are an 0ld 5k00l p1nk0-c0mm13 and include all of Health and Education that’s still only about half of expenditure that needs to be centrally funded.

If you scroll down to how where this money comes from you will see that only about half of the revenue comes from direct personal taxation.

Now if central government were to rightly devolve to local government the responsibilities for raising and spending tax income for the 50% plus that does not require central funding(with a small amount of redistribution to account for poorer areas) ALL personal taxation could be gathered and spent locally, and if you can bear to devolve education and health then you could include a large dollop of ‘Other’.

Basically I am showing you that there is no absolute reason (or absolutely no reason) for central government to directly tax individuals even if you keep current Government spending levels.

Now isn’t that peachy?