A nine-month-old baby is the youngest person to be identified as a future delinquent using new technology aimed at predicting risk, a Community Care conference heard last week.

Dr Eileen Munro, reader in social policy at London School of Economics, warned that rapidly developing IT could become a monster rather than a useful tool.

Do we see a potential future here?
Once the state has marked an individual as a potential (inherent) trouble-maker that person will be spending the rest of their life on the defensive trying to prove themselves against a databased assumption of their guilt.

And all that follows…

Reg Says

Police will be able to pass details of child pornography offenders on to banks so that offenders’ credit cards can be revoked.

The Home Secretary has issued an order for the amendment of the Data Protection Act which will be read in both houses of Parliament.

The order was requested by credit card issuers and is the result of three years of negotiation between the industry and the Home Office, according to a spokeswoman for issuers’ organisation APACS, the UK payments association.

“We asked for this because at the moment if someone uses a card to purchase illegal pornography there is no way under data protection legislation for the Police to pass that information on to card issuers,” an APACS spokeswoman said. “We already have the power to take a card from someone, but if they committed one of these offences we wouldn’t know about it.”

Fair enough (although can a convicted person use a credit card in prison? Surely the problem is with people likely to reoffend being released on parole which is a slightly different issue.) but could this lead to banks refusing credit to, say, protestors arrested under the Terrorism Act who have had their NIR-linked police records or anybody else with certain behaviour frowned upon by the state. After all why stop at these bastards? Why should murderers be able to access credit, or (especially for banks) fraudsters.

Hmmm, start with the lowest of the low…

Old news department, or a taste of how NIR information will be implemented. I emphasise.

A FYLDE coast student was arrested after posting Christmas cards to his family

Stunned David Atkinson found himself at his local police station under suspicion of stealing the festive greetings he last saw when he put them in a postbox five years ago. Due to fingerprints found on the mail – which was stolen then recovered – police thought they had their man. However, it transpired the “suspect’s” fingerprints were those of the student who had innocently sent the cards to relatives when he was 15.

Mr Atkinson, now 21, of [address omitted – gosh, to think that his address was posted online after this, mm], was arrested because his DNA and fingerprints had been kept on record under controversial Government laws to combat terror.

It was only after Mr Atkinson asked officers to look more deeply into the crime his innocence was proved.

The law student said it has shattered his confidence in the system. He said: “The potential incompetence, laziness, or over enthusiasm of an individual officer means an innocent, law-abiding citizen can never truly have confidence in the giant police database.”

It was the second time Mr Atkinson had been arrested – twice for crimes he did not commit. He has now lent his support to a campaign to force a rethink by the Home Office.

The mix-up began last March when Mr Atkinson was arrested on suspicion of criminal damage – but, when the real culprit gave himself up to police, he was released without charge.

During his short time with the police, he had his fingerprints and DNA taken as part of the arrest procedure but, under recently passed laws, all details – no matter whether the person is innocent or guilty – are kept on a national computer.

Mr Atkinson thought nothing of it until he got a call from officers a month later asking him to go along to the station. He said: “I was arrested as soon as I went in. “The officer told me he had a computer report which had automatically matched my fingerprints with those recovered from a number of items of post which had been stolen from a letter box in December 2000.

“As a result of this report alone, and no further investigation, the officer advised me to ‘get the matter out of the way quickly and take a caution now’.

“After refusing to admit a crime I’d not committed, I was bailed while further investigations were made.”
“The recovered letters were in fact my family Christmas cards which had been taken after I had posted them five years ago.
“This innocent explanation had not even crossed the officer’s mind and, as far as he was concerned, if his computer report said I was guilty then I had to be.”

Mr Atkinson complained to Lancashire Constabulary and eventually received an apology. But, he claims, without the Government’s “menace to our freedom”, he would not have been put through the ordeal. A police spokesman said: “We can confirm that we did receive a complaint in August about a wrongful arrest concerning stolen post. “This was investigated thoroughly under our normal complaints procedure and dealt with locally to the satisfaction of both parties. “Under current legislation, all police forces can retain and record DNA taken for arrestable offences no matter what the eventual outcome of the investigation.”

ben.rossington@blackpoolgazette.co.uk

22 February 2006

Get them inured when they are young:

The Blue Peter badge is back in action today as the BBC confirmed it was introducing a new identity card in an attempt to stop badges handed out by the children’s programme being traded online.

Since March, badge holders have been unable to claim free entry to nearly 200 visitor attractions after it emerged that people were buying badges on eBay for up to £70 each.

From now on, all new badge holders will be sent a personalised card along with their badge.

Only by presenting this card, which features Blue Peter’s ship logo as a hologram, can they get in free at attractions such as Legoland, London Zoo and the Eden Project.

The card allows holders to insert a photograph and is marked with an expiry date – the holder’s 16th birthday.

A BBC spokesman said the cards would be marked as property of the BBC to discourage online trade.

“If we become aware of a website selling cards we could request they close down that sale because it would be illegal,” he said.

Blue Peter’s editor, Richard Marson, said the idea for the card had come from an 11-year-old viewer, Helen Jennings, who has since won a silver badge for coming to the programme’s rescue.

Starting this week, the new cards will be sent out to the 800 people who win a Blue Peter badge each week, while past winners can get a card if they fill in a form on the BBC website.

There are estimated to be 500,000 genuine badge holders, who are allowed free entry to attractions if they are under 16. […]

http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,1801126,00.html

This is a clear case of social engineering being pumped out by the scum at the BBC.

If you want to sell your Blue Peter Badge and all the ‘priveledges’ that it gives you, that is YOUR BUSINESS. By tying your blue peter badge to you, nothing is lost; those badges are in circulation and so are the discounts associated with them. Selling the badges does not duplicate the number of priveledges in circlation; this is not a case of someone producing fake badges and selling them so that you can get discounted entry. If they want to limit the use of these badges, then they should RE-DESIGN THE BADGE, and not issue these superfluous, brainwashing, de-humanizing ID cards.

Typical BBC lunacy, and of course, it is the license payer’s money that is going into delivering these un-needed cards, where a simple re-design of the badge would solve their ‘problem’.

Honestly, is there no one there that can THINK?

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 […]

Reg

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.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Problems with the distribution of federal disaster assistance after hurricanes Katrina and Rita caused potential fraud and waste topping $1 billion, an audit by the Government Accountability Office found.

Debit cards given to people displaced by the storms were improperly used to buy diamond jewelry, a vacation in the Dominican Republic, fireworks, a $200 bottle of champagne at a Hooters in San Antonio and $300 worth of “Girls Gone Wild” videos, the audit found.

According to the GAO, $1,000 from a FEMA debit card went to a Houston divorce lawyer, $600 was spent in a strip club and $400 was spent on “adult erotica products,” all of which auditors concluded were “not necessary to satisfy legitimate disaster needs.”

The GAO concluded that at least $1 billion in disaster relief payments by the Federal Emergency Management Agency were improper and potentially fraudulent because the recipients provided incomplete or incorrect information when they registered for assistance.

[…]
The GAO also found that FEMA lost track of 750 debit cards, worth a total of $1.5 million.

After inquiries from the GAO, FEMA recovered about half of that money, which had not been distributed by JPMorgan Chase, the bank hired to run the program. But the agency still cannot account for 381 cards, worth about $760,000 total, which JPMorgan Chase says it distributed, according to the GAO.

[…]

GAO investigators estimated that 16 percent of FEMA’s disaster relief payments were made to people who submitted invalid registrations, to the tune of about $1 billion. However, because the figures were calculated using a statistical sample, the agency said the amount could range from $600 million to as much as $1.4 billion.

[…]

Among the problems found with the registrations, according to the GAO study:

• People signed up for assistance using Social Security numbers that didn’t exist or belonged to other people.
• Aid applications contained bogus addresses for damaged property, or gave addresses for damaged property where the applicants did not live when the hurricanes struck. In one case, FEMA paid nearly $2,360 to a man whose allegedly damaged property was in a cemetery.
• Payments were made to people who listed post office boxes as their damaged residences.
• People submitted duplicate registrations, which FEMA did not detect.
• More than 1,000 registrations used the names and Social Security numbers of prison inmates. According to the GAO, in one instance, FEMA paid $20,000 to a Louisiana prisoner who listed a post office box as his damaged property.
• As part of its audit, the GAO used an undercover registrant who submitted a vacant lot as a damaged address.

FEMA paid the registrant $6,000 and even made payments after being notified by one its own inspectors, as well as an inspector for the Small Business Administration, that the damaged property could not be found, the GAO investigators found.

The GAO concluded that the potentially fraudulent payments occurred because FEMA did not validate the identity of registrants and the locations and ownership of purportedly damaged property before it began making payments.

While conceding that FEMA acted out of the need to provide assistance quickly, GAO investigators concluded the agency’s own policies required additional verification before continuing payments.

The GAO study also found FEMA improperly provided rental assistance to people who were staying in hotels paid for by FEMA because the agency did not require hotels to collect Social Security numbers and FEMA registration information.

Without that information, FEMA could not verify if people were staying in hotels when they applied for rental assistance.

And because that information doesn’t exist, GAO auditors said they could not determine how many people might have double-dipped — or how much it cost the government. […]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/06/14/fema.audit/index.html

My emphasis.

Stepping back, you can se how this can be used as an argument for REALID. With it, people will be inextricably tied to their street addresses, social security numbers and ‘identities’ by their thumbprint. If you want to collect your money, you have to be in the system. If you want to buy something, you have to be in the system. And the system is the ultimate arbiter.

Now in a potential cashless society, where the government mandates that you must be in the system in order to be ‘economically active’ it is abundantly clear how REALID / UKNIRID will be able to track everything that you do. They will use the same methods that used to know about the specific purchases made in this relief programme; just ask. There will be no need for statisical samples in order to see how many people are doing what; it will be a simple (comparatively) SQL query.

Anyone trying to roll out these systems will be smacking their lips at this story, which acts as both a test case for rolling out electronic money to millions of people, but also as a demonstration of why the biometric net must be put in place, “to prevent fraud”.

‘Mother nature’ has kindly provided the pretext for the rolling out of this FEMA programme, and note how it is being tested on the poorest of the poor, who are 1000 times more likely to be able to get a hold of the SSN’s of prisoners and be well versed in the subtle arts of ‘gettin one over the man’.

This article does not mention how much JP Morgan charged the government to run this system. No doubt they made sure that they would not be penalized for any fraud committed by ‘their’ users, otherwise you can guarantee that the system would have been air tight.

You might think your personal data is safe, secured under computerised lock and key, and fenced by the Data Protection Act with its sanctions against release of private data. Especially, surely, that which the government holds.The reality is that everything has its price. Last month, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the state-funded watchdog for personal data, published a report, What Price Privacy?. The title’s question was answered with a price list of public-sector data: £17.50 for the address of someone who is on the electoral register but has opted out of the freely available edited version; £150 to £200 for a vehicle record held by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency; £500 for access to a criminal record. The private sector also leaks: £75 buys the address associated with a mobile phone number, and £750 will get the account details.

These were the prices charged by private investigators caught by the ICO and police. Their clients included insurers, creditors and criminals trying to influence jurors, witnesses or legal personnel. Newspapers were a big source of business: the ICO says it knows the names of 305 journalists who have used such investigators.

The investigators obtained the data from corrupt insiders or via “blaggers” who impersonated officials and others to obtain personal information, often gathering an apparently unimportant fact, such as a mother’s maiden name, in one phone call in order to get a much more important one in the next.

In the report, the ICO called for prison sentences of up to two years for the illegal buying and selling of personal information. The maximum fine is £5,000, and courts often impose much less. “The fine is no deterrent to them,” says Jonathan Bamford, assistant information commissioner. One investigator used by local authorities as well as finance firms to find debtors was invoicing £120,000 a month. “People make so much money, they can get a fine and drive away from court in their Porsche,” says Bamford. The Department for Constitutional Affairs says it is reviewing the sentencing tariff. […]

Patient records

In the absence of tougher laws, the ICO sees the potential for much worse. “The government’s plans for increasingly joined-up and e-enabled public-sector working make the change even more urgent,” the report says. Medical professionals are already concerned about the risks of electronic patient records, which they think will be unpopular with patients who are uneasy about other sectors of government getting at them (see ‘Doctors voice concern over patient records’, below).

Indeed, the government has been playing fast and loose with some people’s data, according to a European court of justice ruling at the end of last month. The court said the 2004 deal between the EU and the US, under which airlines had to provide data about passengers travelling to the US, was unlawful because it breaches privacy rules. As a Guardian investigation last month (http://tinyurl.com/gxx5l) showed, the data sent as a result of that law means a discarded airline ticket stub can be enough to carry out identity theft.

But sometimes the problem lies inside government departments. In January, it emerged that the identity details of 8,800 Network Rail staff – who are civil servants – were stolen in 2003-04 and used to make fraudulent online claims for tax credits, costing the government millions of pounds. Alarmed at the rising levels of fraud through the online service, the government shut it last December.

Such examples are not encouraging about the government’s ability to protect or police the valuable data about us. Yet more is to come in the government’s largest project, which will join all the data about us and put it in a single place – creating a unique description of each of us for every government department. Enrolment on the National Identity Register, to be established by the Home Office under the recently passed Identity Cards Act, will, from 2008, be compulsory when renewing a passport – and compulsory for everyone some time after the next election (due by 2010), if the next government backs it.

The register can include a wide range of personal data, an audit trail of where and when the entry has been accessed, and reference numbers for other systems, including national insurance, driving licence and passport numbers, allowing for substantial joining-up.

The act imposes prison sentences of up to two years for those who illegally disclose information from the register. The ICO – which has reservations about other aspects of the scheme – takes this as its model for all illegal use of personal data.

But Phil Booth, national coordinator for the campaign group No2ID (www.no2id.net), says a two-year sentence will not deter criminals wanting to reach and influence jurors. “The problem is having all that data in one place, so it becomes trivially easy to compromise the system,” he says. He compares personal identity to the Titanic: “They are talking about linking all the watertight compartments, so if one is holed, you go to the bottom of the sea.” […]

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1792102,00.html 

My emphasis.

Hmmmmm. This is an interesting article. We already know about how the NIR could be abused, so I wont go into that aspect.

The structure of this piece is rather familiar. Do you know what I am talking about?

It is also interesting that the Guardian is using Tinyurl in the body of its articles; no, I didnt put it there, its actually on the site!

This article shows that someone is starting to understand the true nature of the NIR, and why it is being created. Your personal data is literally valuable in the money sense.

I have said before that your data belongs to you and is your real property. Furthermore it should not be sold collected or transferred without your permission and a royalty being payed to you.

Imagine getting a %60 royalty every time someone sells your name, address or other details? Every time you get junk mail, you would be paid! But I digress.

What this article fails to do is to turn the subject around and say, ‘you should not do this on any account’. This is as important as a subject can get, and in a circumstance like this, a firm stance needs to be taken to avoid disaster.

Data Theft Affected Most in Military

National Security Concerns Raised

By Ann Scott Tyson and Christopher Lee

Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, June 7, 2006; Page A01

Social Security numbers and other personal information for as many as 2.2 million U.S. military personnel — including nearly 80 percent of the active-duty force — were among the data stolen from the home of a Department of Veterans Affairs analyst last month, federal officials said yesterday, raising concerns about national security as well as identity theft.

The department announced that personal data for as many as 1.1 million active-duty military personnel, 430,000 National Guard members and 645,000 reserve members may have been included on an electronic file stolen May 3 from a department employee’s house in Aspen Hill. The data include names, birth dates and Social Security numbers, VA spokesman Matt Burns said.

Defense officials said the loss is unprecedented and raises concerns about the safety of U.S. military forces. But they cautioned that law enforcement agencies investigating the incident have not found evidence that the stolen information has been used to commit identity theft.

“Anytime there is a theft of personal information, it is concerning and requires us and our members to be vigilant,” Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said. He said the loss is “the largest that I am aware of.”

Army spokesman Paul Boyce said: “Obviously there are issues associated with identity theft and force protection.”

For example, security experts said, the information could be used to find out where military personnel live. “This essentially can create a Zip code for where each of the service members and [their] families live, and if it fell into the wrong hands could potentially put them at jeopardy of being targeted,” said David Heyman, director of the homeland security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Another worry is that the information could reach foreign governments and their intelligence services or other hostile forces, allowing them to target service members and their families, the experts said.

“There is a global black market in this sort of information . . . and you suddenly have a treasure trove of information on the U.S. military that is available,” […]

WaPo

My emphasis. An SQL file containing one million records could easily fit on a USB Flash Drive the size of your thumbnail. When they say ‘an electronic file’ this is what they are talking about.

The article says that the information could be used to find out where military personnel live. The same holds tru obviously, for the data of plebians ordinary citizens. Our safety is just as compromised by this sort of theft as the safety of military types. We can be ‘targeted’ just like anyone else. Why is there increased concern for the personal information of grunts over and above that which is displayed for the man in the street.

We are made to feel concerned that ‘the information could reach foreign governments’.

What the Fuck?

The criminal, mass murdering, regime changing, perverted, CIA/NSA terrorist controlled, government of the USA (Under Satan’s Authority), mandated that the citizens of the EU have their data harvested on a totally bogus pretext, and then keeps this data and uses it for just these criminal ends, and we are meant to think that it is a ‘worry’ when their data is to be spread around the world?

Forgive me if i wish nothing but ill to these people, these HYPOCRITES, these DOGS who now have to suffer what their own government has done to MILLIONS of innocent travellers. And lets not forget, that the animals in the us government collected not just people’s names and addresses, but:

4. Is sensitive data included in the PNR data transfer?

5. Will my PNR data be shared with other authorities?

PNR data received in connection with flights between the EU and the U.S. may be shared with other domestic and foreign government authorities that have counter-terrorism or law enforcement functions, on a case-by-case basis and under specific data protection guarantees, for purposes of preventing and combating terrorism and other serious criminal offences: other serious crimes, including organized crime, that are transnational in nature: and flight from warrants or custody for the crimes described above.

PNR data may also be provided to other relevant government authorities, when necessary to protect the vital interests of that passenger or of other persons, in particular as regards to significant health risks, or as otherwise required by law. [..]

LUT

and lets not forget; name, address, flightnumber, credit card number, and choice of meal.
Once again, I cannot understand how ANYONE who knows this is happening can WILLINGLY fly to the USA…but I digress.

Clearly if the NIR is rolled, out, a disaster like this WILL happen again and again, and the entire contents of the NIR will fall into the hands of criminals. Unlike having your credit card fall into the criminal hands of uncle sham, your fingerprints cannot be changed. You will be exposed forever, and in that eventuality, nothing less than the removal of relying on fingerprints for the purposes of ID will save the millions of compromised persons from impersonation.
If you dont enter the NIR of course, you will not be exposed to this threat. You should not, under any circunstances, register with the NIR should it come into being.

and, just in time for this post:

Information from the UK’s controversial DNA database is being given to foreign law agencies, it has emerged.

The Home Office has revealed that other nations have made 519 requests for details from the database since 2004.

All of the requests were granted and the Liberal Democrats fear there are not enough checks on the system.

It emerged in January that 24,000 under-18s never cautioned, charged or convicted are on the database, which was established in 1995. […]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5056450.stm

and if the NIR comes on line, you can expect this sort of data sharing to proliferate dramatically.

Apalllung. YES APPALLUNG!

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.

Reg

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.

The data breaches noted below have been reported because the personal information compromised includes data elements useful to identity thieves, such as Social Security numbers, account numbers, and driver’s license numbers. A few breaches that do NOT expose such sensitive information have been included in order to underscore the variety and frequency of data breaches. However, we have not included the number of individuals affected in such breaches in the total because we want this compilation to reflect breaches that expose individuals to identity theft as well as breaches that qualify for disclosure under state laws.

For tips on what to do if your personal information has been exposed due to a security breach, read our guide.

The catalyst for reporting data breaches to the affected individuals has been the California law that requires notice of security breaches, the first of its kind in the nation, implemented July 2003.
www.privacyrights.org/ar/SecurityBreach.htm
www.privacy.ca.gov/recommendations/secbreach.pdf

This chronology below begins with ChoicePoint’s 2/15/05 announcement of its data breaches because it was a watershed event in terms of disclosure to the affected individuals. Since then, the “best practice” has been to disclose breaches to individuals nationwide — in a sense, adopting California’s notice requirement nationally.

In the meantime, at least 23 states have passed laws requiring that individuals be notified of security breaches. For a list of states enacting security breach and freeze laws, visit the Consumers Union web site here:

Security breach notice laws: www.consumersunion.org/campaigns/Breach_laws_May05.pdf
Security freeze laws: www.consumersunion.org/campaigns/learn_more/002355indiv.html
State security freeze bills pending in 2006: www.consumersunion.org/campaigns//learn_more/002906indiv.html
And visit the PIRG site here: www.pirg.org/consumer/credit/statelaws.htm.

Congress is considering several bills this year in which security breach notices would be mandated nationwide. See http://thomas.loc.gov. See also EPIC’s bill-track list, www.epic.org/privacy/bill_track.html.

Here are other sources for security breach information:

• Adam Shostack’s blog, www.emergentchaos.com/archives/cat_breaches.html
• Attrition, www.attrition.org/errata/dataloss.html (includes links to news articles and offers free list-serve on the latest breaches, http://attrition.org/security/dataloss.html)
• World Privacy Forum, Security Breaches in the Digital Medical Environment (scroll to section D of testimony), www.worldprivacyforum.org/testimony/NCVHStestimony_092005.html
• Security Breach Resources (Chris Walsh)
  www.cwalsh.org/BreachInfo

[…]

A HUGE list of breaches follows. Go to the site to read it!

[…]

TOTAL 83,114,945

[…]

http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/ChronDataBreaches.htm

And there, once again, you have it.

Britain does not have a unique personal identifier like the american ‘Social Security Number’ (SSN). The British are therefore safe from this type of security breach.

If the UK rolls out the ‘National Identiy Register’ (NIR) then every single person living in the UK will have their Identity compromised in the way described by that website. It is not a question of ‘if’ but of when.

Britian should not introduce the NIR. The British are safer from the threat of identity theft if they do not have a single all encompassing number issued to them.

You must under no circumstances enter the NIR should it be introduced. That is the only way you can be sure that your identity will remain safe.

I always thought Swedes were civilized:

While talking the officer conducting the hearing suddenly enters the room only to inform me that an order has been issued by the prosecutor to collect a DNA-sample from me. For an instant I think that she is trying to make a tasteless joke. But I can tell from her facial expression that she is not. Do I sense a touch of rapture from her? Is she enjoying this as much as I am NOT enjoying it?

(Note that a court order is not needed to get a DNA-sample in Sweden. Only an executive decision by the prosecutor handling the case. The only criteria that he has to adhere to are that jail must be a possible punishment for the crime and that the person forced to leave the sample is under justified suspicion of the crime. However an infringement into someone’s right to protection from invasive procedures of this magnitude requires that a criterion of necessity and proportionality is considered. “Luckily” in this case the prosecutor is not one know from listening to whiny arguments about personal freedoms and other such nancy stuff)
[…]

http://viborginternational.blogspot.com/2006/06/operation-take-down.html

Clearly I was wrong.

They swabbed him for the sole purpose of humiliation, nothing else. This is the true spirit behind biometrics and DNA databases; debasement of humanity, humiliation and subjugation.

There is absolutely no reason to do this in a SUSPECTED case of copyright infringement. These people are beyond insane.

SHAME on Sweden for engaging in this bad business.

There is a new thread of doublespeak weaving its way through the rotting corpse that is HMG: ‘Customer’.

They have replaced the word ‘Citizen’ and ‘Subject’ with the word ‘customer’, as they move to create a state where the wholey disenfranchised sheeple consume the ‘social control’ and tyrrany dished out by them and theircriminally negligent outsourcing partners like those Keystone Cops of Capitalism Capita.

Look at the two places where we have seen this word in this new context; the apprentice cat from the belly of babylon ‘Katherine Courtney’:

‘I think it is important to say that while the pilot itself is not really about testing the robustness and scalability of the particular biometric technologies that are being deployed, it is about studying the enrolment process and the customer experience and being able to validate some of the assumptions that we have built into the business case around the time that it takes to enrol and the customer acceptability.’ […]

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1784770,00.html

And then there is this piece of grotesque insane asylum chatter from Jack ‘Straw Man’ Straw.

Well, I have some news for you, you venal, mass murdering, enslaving, pillaging hellspawn:

THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT.

We were RIGHT about not illegally invading Iraq.
We ARE RIGHT about ID cards.
We ARE RIGHT about not flushing Britain down the toilet at the behest of companies keen to fleece us all.
And lastly but not finally We are RIGHT about THROWING YOU OUT.

‘Customers to blame’

Meanwhile Commons leader Jack Straw has claimed the “fundamental problem” with the Home Office it is the people it deals with, rather than its staff.

He described many of its “customers” as “dysfunctional individuals” who proved to be a “burden” and a “challenge”.

Mr Straw blamed difficult ‘customers’ rather than incompetent staff

Mr Straw said in every other area of government activity – such as health or education – the “customers of the department” were generally “willing volunteers”.

This was “last thing” that applied to the people with whom the Home Office dealt, he said.

“They are dysfunctional individuals many of them: criminals, asylum seekers, people who do not wish to be subject to social control – the purpose of the Home Office.

“It is that which places the burden on the staff and provides a challenge both to staff and to ministers.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5017028.stm

[…]

For this post, I have instantiated a new category: ‘Astonishing’.

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.

The US said the deal was essential after the 9/11 attacks

The European Court of Justice has ruled illegal an EU-US agreement that allows European airline passenger data to be transferred to the US authorities.The court said the May 2004 agreement did not ensure privacy protection for European travellers.

European airlines have been obliged to give US authorities passengers’ names, addresses and credit card details.

The measure – opposed by the European Parliament – was designed to help prevent acts of terrorism.[…]

I nearly choked on my cornflakes when I read this. Amazing.

Now watch as Bliar twists and bends OUR law in an attempt to appease his US ringmasters. You know he will do it, and those opposed will be painted as lily-livered liberati collaborators.

Reds under beds are back in fashion.

Yesterday, in a discussion on “Britishness”, I heard a commentator say one of the characteristics she found so adoring about the British is that they are so apathetic that there will never be another civil war.

She will have plenty of time to reconsider her position on the Isle of Wight Gulag, comrades!

Blair and his bitches underestimate the British at their peril.

I am reminded, somehow, of John Selwyn Gummer, forcing his child to eat a beefburger to downplay the threat of BSE.

Let’s see Bliar frog-marching his sons into Basra without the correct equipment if he wants to demonstrate his resolve and conviction that his war is worth the sacrifices.

Goshdarn it, how I got here from there I don’t know. It’s Tuesday but it’s a Monday feel and my brain is confused.

Criminal Records Bureau outlines five-year strategy…

By Andy McCue

Published: Tuesday 23 May 2006

The Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) has outlined initial plans for integrating ID cards into the criminal record vetting process as part of a “period of major change” in its new five-year business strategy.

The CRB’s current disclosure service charges employers to vet the suitability of new staff who will be working with children and vulnerable adults, although it has been dogged by technical problems since its launch in 2002. Just this week the Home Office admitted that 2,700 innocent people had wrongly been branded as paedophiles and violent robbers because their details were similar to people with criminal convictions.

From 2009 the CRB said it will begin the first phase of integrating the ID card in the authentication and application process for verifying the identity of those undergoing criminal record checks. More immediate targets include a move to complete electronic services as part of the strategy to reduce the cost of processing CRB checks. The current service is based only on paper and phone applications but the CRB said it is aiming for full “e-service delivery” for single and bulk electronic applications by 2008.

The CRB business plan said: “Removing the paper form and moving rapidly to a position where electronic transactions are the most used application channel is an essential step in the drive to create a low-priced but high value disclosure service.” This will lead to the CRB operating on a self-funding basis for the first time since it was set up, with a surplus of £2.4m projected for this current financial year.

Another key change in the CRB will be the setting up of a new online register of vetted people – run by the Department for Education and Skills – for employers to check. Anyone who undergoes a criminal record check will be added to the register which will then be continuously updated. Some of these developments will require changes to the CRB’s £400m PFI contract with Capita, which runs until 2012.

The range of data sources the CRB can search is also to be extended from the Police National Computer and police intelligence sources to include the British Transport Police, Royal Military Police, the Serious and Organised Crime Agency and the police forces for Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man. […]

http://www.silicon.com/publicsector/0,3800010403,39159065,00.htm

My emphasis.

Like we have been saying, the NIR is going to be the key to everything you do and are in the UK.

They are going to check if you have a criminal record or not in real time, on a person by person basis with a swipe of your card. They are going to be able to check you even if you are not present, by submitting your NIR number. You are going to be checked en masse in bulk background checks when companies collect millions of NIR numbers and want to weed out the ‘criminals’.

You can imagine what it will be worth to have your NIR removed from the criminal records DB and put into the ‘trusted people’ DB. Some Home Office bod is going to make hundreds of thousands ‘upgrading’ people…or he is going to get all the ‘free’ sex he can handle.

Note the company that is in charge of all this, Capita, that incompetent firm that has no responsibility for ruining peoples lives. Note also that they intend it to be self funding, meaning that every time a check is made, someone has to pay, and your data is being used to make money for Capita. A licence to fleece the British man….SHAME!

This scheme changes the nature of criminal justice. When you were convicted of a crime, and you pay your ‘tarrif’ to the state, the matter is then finished. With these background checks being done all the time, you will pay for your crimes, no matter how big or small, for the rest of your life.

That is not right.

By Christopher Lee and Steve Vogel

The Daily Mirror

LONDON — As many as 26.5 million citizens were placed at risk of identity theft after intruders stole an electronic data file this month containing their names, birthdates and NIR numbers from the home of a Home Office employee, Secretary Jim Nicholson said Monday.

The burglary occurred May 3 in Basildon, according to a source with knowledge of the incident who requested anonymity because the matter is under investigation.

“In terms of NIR numbers, it’s the biggest breach,” said Evan Hendricks, author of the book “Credit Scores & Credit Reports.” “As long as you’ve got that exact NIR, most of the time the credit bureaus will disclose your credit report, and that enables the thief to get credit.”

A career data analyst, who was not authorized to take the information home, has been put on administrative leave pending the outcome of investigations by the SOCA, local police and inspector general of the Home Office, Nicholson said. He would not identify the employee by name or title. […]

http://www.newsfromthefuture.com/

And there you have it. The ‘Frances Stonor Saunders’ email predicts that such a breach will happen, either with or without the public being informed. All your personal information will be ‘out there’ and there will be no way to get it back.

Of course, in the UK it will be far worse than any mass theft of SSNs. Your indellible biometric details, the record of your unique essence will have been stolen, those poor vets can all be re-issued clean SSNs; you cannot be issued with new fingerprinits, iris patterns or DNA. This is the profound difference between changable numbers in a centralized database and your biometric details in a centralized database. Both are dangerous, but the latter is permanently damaging to you and your good reputation.

People from court ushers to students were wrongly labelled pornographers, thieves and violent robbers because their names and dates of birth matched those of convicted criminals on the Police National Computer.

Victims had to go to police stations to be fingerprinted to clear their names.

The mismatches were made by Capita, the controversial computer firm with many lucrative government contracts despite a woeful record on major technology projects. […]

Mirror

My emphasis. The counter statistic that is bandied about to do with this scandal is that 27,000 people were stopped from getting jobs in sensitive positions, and that millions of checks are carried out each year, and these errors are the most tiny of percentages.

Wait a minute. MILLIONS of checks each year? What are the exact numbers, and who on earth is making all of these checks?

One of the girls in the list of people wrongly branded criminals was falsely accused TWICE.

None of the people who have been found to be falsely accused have been able to sue Capita, HMG or anyone for defamation of character, loss of earnings, pain and suffering.

The problem of this and other private companies ruining the lives of individuals is going to be vastly greater if the NIR is rolled out. You had better not register your details in the NIR; this is the only way that you will be absolutely sure that you are not marked as a criminal as they attempt to bring all government databases under the unique key of the NIR number.