Rumsfeld sued over Pentagon’s recruiting database

[…]

The Pentagon last year acknowledged it had created a database of 12 million Americans, full of personal data such as grades and Social Security numbers, to help find potential military recruits.

The Pentagon has defended the practice as critical to the success of the all-volunteer U.S. military, and said it was sensitive to privacy concerns.

[…]

Washington Post

So do you think they only compiled a database of ‘good guys’ or, rather, do you think they stopped profiling of people who were found not to be useful to the Pentagon?

Do you think that with the continuous testing and assessment in UK schools something similar hasn’t been (or couldn’t be) devised in the UK?

When they have NIR information do you think the government/security forces won’t be tempted to try something much larger?

Do you think the companies that will be paying for NIR information will simply bin it after verifying your ID or do you think they will ‘optimise their investment’?

Do you think we should even give them the chance to do this?

[…] there’s the question of the rate at which we’re all going to be put on this thing – I’ve done some calculations before on the speed at which the system will have to work based on 700,000+ people turning sixteen every year for ever, which showed that for normal office hours there isn’t actually very long to do all the ‘background checks’ and duplicate biometric checks that would be required for a gold standard database. Now I’ve seen the first official figures for the rate as estimated by the S.E. and his hapless sidekick Andy ‘Noddy’ Burnham, and they’re alarming from the point of view of a professional IT worker or indeed anyone with a basic mathematical knowledge:

About 80% of the UK population has a passport and all will have to be renewed within the next 10 years, at an initial rate of about 7 million people a year, a Home Office spokesman said.

Now, even leaving out anyone *wanting* to go on the damn thing or people over 16 getting their first passport (who’d have to go on it, like it or not) or the several hundred thousand foreigners coming into the country whom we now find will be put on it* (does this mean another fully manned registration centre at every port of entry, working round the clock, or do you just trust them to roll up of their own accord after entry?), we’re looking at a system workload in the first year of ten times the long term load. In a new system set up by a Government IT contractor, paying the kind of wages for operating the kind of systems that have led to such high morale and efficiency in organisations like the CSA that’s a hell of a task. This is all supposed to kick off and be working at that rate in 2008. Assuming December 2008 (and December is a really bad month to launch new IT kit for myriad reasons) that’s 32 months away.

Let’s examine what 7 million NIR entries per year looks like:

Days in a year – 365 (ok, I know 2008 is a leap year!)
Weekends – 104 days
Weekdays – 261 days

Public Holidays: usually 8 days a year or so including time off around Christmas

Working days for NIR per year – 261-8 = 253

Registration centres : 70

Number of registrations per year per centre : 7m/70 = 100,000

Per centre per day : 100,000/253 = approximately 400

Working hours of centre – well, since you’re forcing people to come along you can’t make it the middle of the night, so say 9 to 5 inclusive – 8 hours per day (or 8*253 = 2024 hours per year)

So adding it all up, from NIR Day 1 for ten years you’ve got to keep processing people at the rate of 50 per hour at every centre, or one every 72 seconds, each of whom requires a scan of the whole central NIR to avoid multiple registrations, so the database has to be up and accessible every minute of the day to avoid delay.

In the early days it’s a nailed on certainty that we’ll get failures, resulting in potentially hundreds of people making pointless journeys (say it’s down for an hour during a particular day – that’s 50 people at each centre having their time wasted, a total of 3500 people). I have no idea of the MTBF for major government IT projects, and they almost certainly won’t tell me on the usual ‘commercial confidentiality’ grounds. What I can do is provide some figures based on possible percentage reliability and estimate the number of people inconvenienced per year and the kind of reliability that would be required *from day one* to stop the scheme sliding into chaos.

I’d suggest that anything much below 99.9% reliability is going to be seriously political in terms of people claiming loss of earnings, loss of holidays etc. 99.999% is cloud cuckoo land for a scheme of this complexity built in 32 months. Not a lot of margin for error between those two really. You reach the million people inconvenienced per year mark at about 85.8% uptime, by the way. […]

http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/945 

Over the last few months, I have been carefully following the nature of the spread of information about ID cards. A very clear pattern has emerged, a sample of which can be seen on this thread:

http://www.perspectives.com/forums/view_topic.php?id=95010&forum_id=71

It goes something like this:

• Someone finds an excellent article on UK ID cards, quickly googles to fact check, then freaks out.
• They post an article on a forum.
• One of the first three posts calls bullshit.
• The original poster categorically states that it is not bullshit, and then provides proof.
• Person who calls bullshit admits they were wron, and then laughing nervously, says “wow thats fucked up”, “UK is sick”, “Whats happened to the UK”, “big brother is here” etc.

Some posters do one or more of the following:

1. Pledge to spread the news
2. Pledge not to sign up
3. Pledge to write to their MP
4. Pledge to write to the PM

• Posters ask why people are so sheepish / passive
• Posters become enraged and ask how they are getting away with this (this happens mostly in UK based forums)
• Poster says, “thanks for letting us know about this”
• The thread ends

It is clear that the problem here is the poor spread of information. People simply are not being made aware of what the ID card legislation means, and there are still people out there who have not had the details explained to them correctly.

There is hope however. Whenever people are told the truth about this scheme, they turn against it, and this is even when they robotically repeat the reasons for it that have been spoon fed to them.

It is therefore extremely important that you use your offline network connectivity to spread the message about this, using all the details that you have at your fingertips.

My advice to you is to perform some experiments with some random people, like cab drivers, waitresses, shop people who have an idle moment. You will see for yourself, that if they are ambivalent or for ID cards, you can turn them around in the space of ten minutes if you use the right combination of words.

You will then be able to turn people at will. If you turn 5 people, and make two of them promise to turn five more, there will not be one single adult person in the UK who will not have been properly instructed about ID cards.

From: Tony Blair To: Henry Porter Subject: Liberty

Dear Henry Porter,

Frankly it’s difficult to know where to start, given the mishmash of misunderstanding, gross exaggeration and things that are just plain wrong. A few explanatory facts might help.

I can’t wait.

You say I have ‘pared down our liberty at an astonishing rate’, then list a whole lot of fundamental rights, as if these had all been drastically curtailed. We are proposing that the right to trial by jury be changed in one set of circumstances: highly complex serious fraud cases. The reason is simple. The cases last for months, sometimes years – they are incredibly difficult for juries for time and complexity reasons; it is over 30 years since Lord Roskill recommended the change because otherwise such cases often collapse at huge expense and the guilty go free. The estimated number of cases per year is around 20, out of a total of 40,000 jury trials.

“Defenders of this practice say it is justified if a single murderer is prosecuted.” indeed. Then the same is also true about trial by jury. If even one person’s rights are reduced, then it is not worth it. Indeed, if one persons rights are infringed the entire society is damaged. To justify murder by saying “only 20 people out of the millions of living britons will be murdered, so it OK” is a mark of this Nazi inspired, venal gang of bloodsoaked murderers.

The right to silence was already restricted by the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (Sections 34-38), which enables a court, if it wishes and in certain circumstances, to draw an adverse inference from a defendant’s failure to answer questions on any charge. The only change introduced by this Government was to clarify (in the light of subsequent case law) the circumstances under which inferences can be drawn from silence in cases where the charge is one of causing the death of a child or vulnerable adult. This again is in a tiny number of cases.

“We are already half way up your ass, we just pushed it in all the way; what is your problem with that?” Honestly, if this is the quality of Bliars thought we can begin to assume that he is not really in control, and is just going along with a flow pushed by people in the background.

You say people can only have blank placards outside Parliament and can’t protest. Go and look at the placards of those camped outside Parliament – they are most certainly not blank and usually contain words not entirely favourable to your correspondent. Outside Downing Street, virtually every day there are protests of one sort or another.

The one man who is camped there can only be there because he started his protest BEFORE the new legislation came into force. A person was arrested for simply reading out a list of people. inside your own devils gathering a man was arested for heckling, and the terrrorism act was the pretext. You are a LIAR and a destroyer of liberty Tony Bliar, and everyone knows it!

It’s correct that, again in a small number of cases, we have introduced unusual restrictions to combat terrorists. There are 12 control orders in place. But we did suffer the death by terrorism of over 50 of our citizens last July. In common with virtually every major nation in the world, we are tightening our restrictions but there are, in every case, elaborate mechanisms of scrutiny and oversight.

First of all, over 40,000 people have been arrested using the terrorism act. That is totally unnaceptable. Secondly, even if the terrorists killed 50,000 people, that is no reason to dismantle this nation. MILLIONS of men gave their lives to protect Britian and its way of life. That you think you have the right to throw away this countries rights because 50 people were killed by a random act by unafiliated and deranged students shows your complete and utter insane state of mind. What other nations may or may not do, this is BRITAIN and BRITIAN LEADS it does not FOLLOW. Especially into the abyss that you are trying to drag it. The Soviet Union had internal passports; did that mean that everywhere should also have them? This sort of ‘reasoning’ is beneath contempt.

And, of course, the reason why even these types of restrictions can end up in our courts and be struck down, is that this Government gave British citizens for the first time ever the power to challenge Executive action or legislation, through the incorporation of the European Convention.

Indeed! wonder if this means that we can strike down the ID cards bill? Shall we try?

We enter the realm of fantasy with your and others’ strictures on the Regulatory Reform Bill. This legislation is proposed for a straight-forward reason. Much regulation becomes redundant over time. It’s a real problem for business. It costs money and causes hassle, often in circumstances far removed from its original purpose. The problem is that if it is in primary legislation then only by formal Act of Parliament can it be changed. In a busy schedule where usually the legislation is very arcane, it can take years, if ever, for necessary change to occur.

The proposal is that in circumstances closely defined and expressly where it doesn’t interfere with people’s basic rights, ministers can propose removing the regulation by order. But before this can actually happen, first the order is subject to public consultation; second, it is scrutinised by independent committees of both houses of parliament; third, there is then a debate before the order is passed in Parliament, which can naturally refuse to accept it. To describe this as the ‘abolition of Parliamentary democracy’ – as some critics have – is more than a little far-fetched.

Firstly, the reason is bogus. Secondly, parilaiment, if it was doping its job properly, and as I have said on BLOGDIAL before, should be sitting and REMOVING legislation, not ADDING legislation. This bill allows parliament to ADD TO and AMEND existing legislation without oversignt, not REMOVE it wholesale. If it was there only to remove legislation it might be arguable that it could not affect rights since only the ADDITION of laws can remove rights from the person.

Next comes some vomit inducing electioneering wrapped in double tall:

When we talk of civil liberties, what about theirs, the law-abiding people; the ones who treat others with courtesy and good manners and expect the same back? Don’t theirs count for anything?

Bliar knows perfectly well that ‘civility and ‘civil liberties’ are two different things, and that he is masterfully conflating them in this piece of disgusting double talk. If there is an estate with a problem, send more police in there. Removing the rights of everyone in the UK because there are some crime hotspots is simply absurd, and he knows this, because he is not stupid.

You complain of the DNA database samples being retained. Since we allowed this, over 14,000 offences have been successfully matched to over 8,000 suspects including over 100 murders and 100 rapes – and as far as I am aware, no one is on the database for dropping litter!

There is nothing funny about this you Nazi piece of filth. Just as an 80 year old heckler was arrested using the terrorism act right in your face, this too will be done, and then what will you say?

And as for the murders and rapes that were solved, this is good, but that has nothing to do with KEEPING THE DNA OF THE INNOCENT ON RECORD. When someone is innocent of any crime, they should have no police record of ANY KIND. and the fact that the police are keeping the DNA of 24,000 INNOCENT children on file – which is child abuse – has nothing to do with the solving of the crimes you mention above. You are a devil, and not even a devil in disguise. Under your orders, 24,000 innocent british children have been VIOLATED, and that is a FACT.

You can’t deal with the levels of sophistication in today’s organised crime by traditional methods. That’s why we are giving the new agency new powers to force suspects to disclose information, to open up their accounts; to ensure that their advisers can’t conceal evidence; and to track their movements not just in Britain but abroad.

That is utter nonsense. The police have more than enough powers to detect any crime, and once again, this is no excuse for removing the rights of ALL the UK citizens. When Bliar says’ “to ensure that their advisers can’t conceal evidence” he is talking about the removal of lawer client privacy; see how he cannot even bring himself to say what he has done? Inside his insane head somewhere, he realizes just how fundamentally outrageous what he has pulled off is.

The issue of ID cards is a little different, because I think there are very good reasons of practicality why, in today’s world, people should be able to protect their identity from fraud or abuse. The figure of £10bn for the cost is ludicrous; and in any event 70 per cent of the cost is because of the move to biometric passports, happening round the western world.

People can protect themselvs from identity fraud primarily by not entering the NIR, ie refusing the ID card. The reality of this has been made crystal clear and soon, not one person in the UK will not have been informed about it. Just because the rest of the world is moving to biometric passports that doesnt mean that the UK should, and also, ‘biometric passports’ does not mean the UK NIR. The new passport standard sets a minimum level of security features which the UK is unilaterally exceeding to the most absurd of levels. Once again, a bald faced lie, from the mouth of a lying murderer!

Ultimately, for me this whole issue is not about whether we care about civil liberties, but how we care for them in the modern world. If the traditional processes were the answer to these crime and law and order problems that are an age away from Dixon of Dock Green and the stable communities of 50 years ago, then we wouldn’t be having this debate. But they’re not. They’ve failed. They are leaving the innocent unprotected and the guilty unpunished. That’s why we need them changed.

This is a total lie, and one he and his cohorts have repeated before form his liars clipboard. The innocent are unprotected because there are not enough police, not because the inadequate numbers have too few powers. This is everything to do with civil liberties, and thanks to Murder Inc, a permanent solution to this problem is around the corner, so that never again will the likes of this mass murderer will be able to single handedly destroy Britain.

[…]

Go and read this apalling exchange yourself. Sadly, Henry Porter doesn’t know how to thread email, otherwise, he could have taken that lying sack of shit apart line by line.

Isabel Oakeshott, Deputy Political Editor

IDENTITY cards are to carry medical details, despite repeated government assurances that concerns about privacy meant it would not happen.

A minister at the Home Office disclosed it wants people to put personal health information on the cards to give doctors information for emergencies.

Card-holders will be urged to volunteer details of blood group, allergies, and whether they wish to donate organs. Ministers stressed there would be no compulsion.

Andy Burnham, a junior Home Office minister with responsibility for promoting ID cards, said there was an “impressive benefits case” for use of the cards by the NHS.

Health information about individuals would be kept on the central identity card database, and would not be visible on the cards themselves.

Pressure groups condemned the move as “function creep”, while the British Medical Association (BMA) said it was “sceptical” of the benefits.

Last October Charles Clarke, the home secretary, explicitly ruled out the move, saying “no medical details will be on the database”.

However, Burnham denied the government was now performing a U-turn: “There is an argument to say that if people want to put personal information on the card, they should. It is something we are looking at.

“You could argue that blood group, allergies, donor status, that sort of information could be potentially helpful, for example, when a patient arrives in accident and emergency. People could also put their next of kin on the cards if they wanted.”

A clause added to identity card legislation last year states that the database will not hold sensitive personal details. However, Burnham said: “That is specifically about attaching NHS records to the database. We have explicitly ruled this out and have not changed our position. What we are talking about is simple, voluntary health information.”

Asked if HIV-Aids victims would be encouraged to disclose their status, he said: “We are not considering that at this stage.”

The Home Office also wants to use the cards to tackle so-called health tourism — with GP surgeries and hospitals encouraged to use the system to check whether foreign patients are entitled to NHS care.

[…]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2147744,00.html

NOW YOU SEE. They are going to put everything and anything onto the NIR; they have decided to add this extra row to the database without any debate, no new act of parliament, nothing – just a pronouncement made public on a Sunday.

They WILL include your religion.
They WILL include your HIV status, after they have ‘considered’ it.
They WILL include your ‘vaccination status’.
They WILL include anything they have previously said that they would not include, and things that have not even been mentioned, like ‘race’ (no a photo does not show what ‘race’ you belong to).
HMG will roll out the full feature list over the next two years, incrementally adding new rows until there is not a single fact that they cannot record on the NIR arbout you.

Of course, if you are not in there, they cannot even begin this process. That is why you must not register under any circumstances.

This is what the skin of the new tyranny will look like. For all intents and purposes, this looks like an ordinary reciept from the supermarket Waitrose. However, upon close inspection, you will see a single line that separates this reciept from every other one you have ever taken away from a shop. The person who made this purchase, bought a bottle of wine with her groceries, which included bread, fruit, tampons, soap, bacon, soup, mineral water, green beans and a bar of chocolate. Because she bought alcohol, and in this case, paid by credit card, her identity needed to be checked to be sure that she was over 18, and that ‘she was who she said she was’.

That is why the line ‘NIR VERIFIED’ Is in there.

Her ID card was swiped at the till. This means that her unique NIR number is linked to her Mastercard, since she didn’t pay cash and bought alcohol. It means that all her purchases are now linked to her number, as well as being linked to all the RFID tags on each item she bought.
It means that the government has a record of where she was at that precise moment. They know what she was doing; shopping at Waitrose. As she walks up the kings road doing her shopping by credit card, the government will be able to follow her from shop to shop as she spends spends spends.

On the surface, this reciept is as innocent as any other. You will not see the NIR in action as you are verified again and again, but the evil will be there, gradually accumulating the dust of your activities.

Do not register for the NIR. Renew your passport right now. Tell all your friends about this abominable project, and implore them to absolutely disobey.

Or take the consequences.

Why you should renew your passport.

The Identity Cards Act 2006 turns your passport into a one-way ticket to control of your identity by the government. It means lifelong surveillance, and untold bureaucracy. This website, produced by the NO2ID campaign, is about how you can renew your passport and avoid being forced to register on the ID scheme database.

Please renew your passport in May.

Our factsheet [hyperlinks to the right] explains how and why. Download it, pass it on to your friends, or print it out and distribute it.

You can apply to renew your passport online right now at the UK Passport Service website or request that they post you a paper form to fill in yourself.

Act now. Protect yourself later.

If we all act together, we’ll send a message to the politicians and bureaucrats who think that they can take control of who we are, and to the companies that hope to make a fortune — at our expense — helping them.

You may have heard that you’ll be able to opt out of having an ID card if you renew your passport before 1st January 2010. But the card is not the point. Even if you chose not to have it, you would still have to pay for it. And you will get no choice about attending an official interview, producing numerous personal documents to be recorded, and having your fingerprints and eye scans taken for the records.

“Anyone who opts out in my opinion is foolish.”
— Charles Clarke, on the passing of the Identity Cards Act 2006.

Ignore the sneering.

Once you are on the Register, you will never get off until it is abolished. But you’ll be exposed to all the risks and dangers of the scheme immediately. The Home Office is building the most complex and intrusive ID control system in the world. It will certainly go wrong.

Once you are on the Register — with or without a card — you will also be forced to keep all the details that are kept about you up to date (and sort out any government errors).

Once you are on the Register you will face penalty charges for not telling the Home Office if you move house or if any other of your registered details change.

Far from being ‘foolish’, renewing your passport to avoid all this is just plain common sense. In the 10 years that follow, NO2ID and many others will be working to end the ID scheme and keep Britain a free country.

“… anyone who feels strongly enough about the linkage not to want to be issued with an ID card in the initial phase will be free to surrender their existing passport and apply for a new passport before the designation order takes effect.”
— Charles Clarke, on 21st March 2006.

The Home Secretary himself has said you can do it. Don’t delay — he might change his mind….

[…]

http://www.renewforfreedom.org/ 

Criminal scumbag Andy Burnham has said:

The warning came after The Home Office yesterday said private sector engagement will accelerate over the next few months, so project infrastructure is up and running before the next general election.

Andy Burnham, the minister in charge of the scheme, explained a rapid roll out of its key technologies would make David Cameron’s “throwaway” pledge to “pull it down” irrelevant.

Rebuffing the Tory leader’s remark, Mr Burnham added it would be a “fait accompli” by the 2008 or 2009 expected date of the next general election, The Financial Times reported.

[…]

http://www.contractoruk.com/news/002619.html 

What this actually means is that the Nazis understand that if the system is either not up and running or not full of people it can be scrapped.

This is why it is absolutely essential that no one registers for any reason whatsoever. A system that is either not online or that is pitifully empty will be much easier to shut down politically. If it is up and running and is full of millions of people, then it becomes an extremely valuable tool of opression, and no government will be able to resist using it for its own ends.

Rail chiefs have unveilled plans to ensure thousands of Tube workers turn up on time by introducing a hi-tech fingerprint scanning device.

Up to 8,000 engineers, track and signal staff willhave to pass their fingerprints over a computer scanner to clock in and out of work.

Unions have hit out at the plans, accusing their bosses of infringing staff’s civil liberties and have threatened strike action.

The identification scheme, being studied by Metronet and Tube Lines, the two private sector consortia in charge of engineering work, would mean every worker having to be fingerprinted and the information kept on a central register.

On clocking-on, a worker would touch a scriin with their finger which would read it and check it.

The exact time would be recorded. Metronet and Tube Lines say the system is for security and safety reasons – to ensure only fully licensed and properly qualified staff gain access to the network.

But it would also eliminate anyone clocking-in for their workmates. A splokesman for Metronet, which employes 5,000 engineers and other workers, said, “We are seeking an easy, foolproof system to identify everyone who is working on our network”.

Bobby Law, London district secretary of the RMT, said: “Not in a million years will we agree to accept this”.

[…]

Evening Standard, 6pm edition, page 18.

Well done Bobby. Now all you have to do is make sure that all of your members and the members of the other unions refuse to enter the NIR, because if you do not, you will all be thumbing into work, play and everything else you do.

And lest we forget a tale about the fragility of these systems. Imagine this happening to the NIR. The entire country would be stopped dead should the card be rolled out like the Nazis want it to be:

Police fingerprint system wiped out
By Paul Waugh Deputy Political Editor, Evening Standard

Police investigations across the country have been crippled by a huge crash in the national fingerprint computer system.

All 43 forces in England and Wales, including the Metropolitan Police, have been hit by the shutdown of the National Automated Fingerprint Identification System (Nafis).

The blunder, described by insiders as the biggest ever police IT disaster, means national checks have not been

run on suspected criminals or

evidence at crime scenes. A police memo leaked to the Evening Standard reveals the network collapsed more than a week ago.

Written by Bruce Grant, head of the Met’s Fingerprint Bureau, it states that the meltdown “means that no offender’s identity can be verified”.

The crash is the latest costly IT disaster to hit government departments or agencies. The Tories today demanded a full inquiry and seized on the incident as proof that David Blunkett’s plans for a national ID card system could be wrecked by a computer failure.

The Nafis system, which is run by American computer giant Northrop Grumman, has been the Government’s most prestigious police IT project.

It allows an individual force to check if a fingerprint matches

hundreds of thousands of others. The Standard has learned that the system went offline at

4.30am last Wednesday, plunging into chaos every one of the 43 fingerprint bureaux across the nation.

Several forces were back on the system by last night but some parts of the country are still not connected today.

A Home Office spokeswoman said that while forces could not check prints nationally they could run local checks.

[…]

http://www.thisislondon.com/

Wac?aw Kledzik’s (8.0.1.6) ‘Arbeitskarte’ (work permit), produced for Ignacy Szczygie?, a Pole from eastern borderland.

http://www.kledzik.strony.pl

http://sorrel.humboldt.edu/

http://wwii-militaria.net/civilian_documents.htm

http://www.cottingleyconnect.org.uk/id.htm

POW ID card at Stalag Luft I

www.merkki.com/potterlc.htm

And this is the BEST collection:

http://www.usmbooks.com/index_rare_documents.html

and now, for a blog article…

ID cards part of the World ID project

The ID cards coming into forced usage in the United Kingdom are part of a global project called the World ID project.
Based underground in a military installation in the United States, huge computer mainframes are in place ready to store, catagorise and search a database of information on the whole population of the earth.
Dr. William Deagle a medical doctor who has worked on secret government projects claims to have visited the underground computer mainframe in 1994, underneath Schriever AFB in Colorado Springs.
download here

ID cards have been rolled out across the world over recent years, Pakistan, Brazil, China, India, Czechoslovakia and Italy only being a small sample, have finally reached the UK and been forced through by our wayward government.

Its hard to imagine the contrast, when in Asia 1 billion live in poverty, their governments are only interested in giving them mandatory ID cards to access private services, vote (inevitably), collect social security, open a bank account, travel and like in Italy, show on demand to law enforcement officials.
The US supreme court ruled June 2004 that ID must be shown on demand to law enforcement.
I suppose its all just to cut fraud.

The reality appears to be that some form of global control grid is coming down hard on the people living not just in Asia but all around the world and soon may come to us unsuspecting UK citizens too.
It is quite possible that this ID card the government so forceful pushed through has exactly the same implications for us as it does for those in communist China or fascist Italy.

Initially our ID cards (UK) are biometric and will replace our passports but in the future they will be DNA based and the plan appears to be then to have a DNA database for every nation. In the United States ID cards are being introduced through driving licenses as few own passports.

The plan is to integrate this into the new security features for travel. I.e. in the New World you will need to present your approved global standard biometrics ID card to travel abroad. Seeing as this is only the beginning the strategy appears to be to move then down to national travel, railway stations for example, then down to the local level, boarding buses.

The governments claim all sorts of things for these cards one of them is that it will stop fraud, but the technology approved as the global standard “facial biometrics ID” is the least accurate of all biometrics data.
University of Cambridge professor Daugman who developed the international algorithms for Iris recognition claims it fails 5% to 40% of the time.

“Today’s computer algorithms for automatic face recognition have a truly appalling performance, in terms of accuracy,”

The recognition software is currently only capable of checking your face, no criminal database checks anywhere, yet. A human being can do that.

So why has the ICAO “specified facial recognition as the globally interoperable biometric technology for machine-assisted identity confirmation?” (link)
In the technology testing they relied upon (FRVT2002) a New York Times report on it concludes “Cognitec, the leading performer on that test, gained a 77 percent rating but its success rate fell to 56 percent when the watch list grew to 3,000.”

Even the best biometrics technology being rolled out, Iris scans, still fall far short of any kind of security.
In February 2002 the US Department of Defense issued a report that found wide discrepancies between manufacturers’ claims of successful biometrics identification rates and those seen in the field. The report found that iris recognition did better than most but one manufacturer’s claim of a 0.5% false identification rate ballooned to 6% during the DOD tests.
Even 0.5% is not acceptable.

Fingerprints are left everywhere, they are not secure. Also for the estimated 2% of the population who have worn finger pads the scanners wont work. Contact lenses can possibly be manufactured to fool iris scanners. Voice recognition wont work in noisy areas, and can potentially be fooled by computer software.

Current biometirc technology is not only easy to bypass but fundamentally flawed at even checking the real card owner. It is not ready for global secure rollout.
The only conclusion can be that this system is destined to fail, possibly designed that way as a political tool to help bring in DNA databases or microchipping, both of which are firmly on the agenda.

Once again the technology is incapable of working with databases and yet huge amounts of money are being pumped into this.
Makes you wonder what’s going on surely?

The government is only interested in selling your data, using it to make money. The two motives conflict stongly, keeping it secure and selling it for profit! They do not work together.

Ill finish with a quote from the ID World Electronic passport website

“The issuing of machine-readable travel documents will take place in three distinct waves – first ePassports, then National IDs and finally Visas – and 2006 will see the creation of the infrastructure to support this major shift. Such a revolution could be viewed merely as a consequence of the mandatory implementation of a relatively narrow project, but in reality the introduction of electronic travel documents worldwide will pave the way towards the much broader market penetration of RFID and biometric technology in the areas of citizen ID and eGovernment projects.”

[…]

http://unitingthenations.blogspot.com/

But… you know this.

The new Inentity and Passport Service website is publishing lies about how the card and NIR will work. In fact, that website contradicts itself:

Using the scheme in daily life

Proving your age

This is one of the simplest transactions and will usually be completed without using a card reader to check information against the National Identity Register (NIR).

Ella is 18 and wants to buy some wine from an off-licence to take to a party. Cynthia is a youthful 70 and is keen to claim an ‘over-65’ discount offered at her local garden centre. In each case the retailer could ask for proof of age. As both Ella and Cynthia have an ID card, they do not need to show:

• birth certificate
• pension book
• driving licence
• or any other documents that might be requested to prove identity.

Instead each of them can simply hand over their ID card.

In this case the retailers will simply:

• look at both sides of the card checking for the security features, then
• compare Ella or Cynthia with their photograph on the card.

If the retailers are satisfied that the ID cards are genuine and that they each belong to the person using them, they will then check the dates of birth to confirm their ages.

It takes just moments for the check to be completed so that Ella can buy the wine and Cynthia can claim her discount. […]

From the page about proving your age to buy alcohol. And then there is this from the Identity Verification Service section, which contradicts the text above:

Identity verification service

The identity verification service will provide a way for accredited organisations to check an individual’s identity. This means that you will have a secure and convenient way of proving your identity in a variety of situations, such as opening a bank account or registering with a GP, for example.

The identity verification service works at different levels according to what information is needed. For example:

• for a basic transaction such as proving your age it could confirm simply that your card is valid
• if you are a foreign national applying for a job it could be used to confirm that the status of your visa allows you to work
• if you are applying to work in a position of trust (as a nanny for example) it could be used to confirm that you do not have a criminal record.

To protect your privacy, all organisations that wish to use the identity verification service will need to be accredited, and they will need your consent before they use the service to check your identity.

My emphasis.

The first one says that you simply hand over your card for a visual check and then thats it. If thats the case, then there is no need for a centralized database, NIR swipe terminals everywhere, and photo ID as used in WW2 would be sufficient. Then they contradict themselvs, and say that the Identity Verification Service would provide ‘basic transactions’ like checking how old you are. This means getting your card swiped in an NIR card reader:

and your card being checked in real time, and a record being made at the NIR. Alcohol sellers will demand to be accredited so that they can check the age of buyers without having to rely on the judgement of their staff, and remove all doubt from every transaction.

Now when they say ‘accredited’ that means that the business wanting to be able to use this service simply has to fill out a form, have ‘a legitimate purpose’ and then pay a monthly/per check fee to access the database with its terminals.

Something tells me that ‘Francis Stonor Saunders’ has caused the above bit of copywriting to be shoehorned into that website, It clearly doesn’t fit in there, and must be a response to ‘that email’ which is still spreading like wildfire.

That website is just what you would expect from a double talking lie spreading murder squad headed dragon government.

And another thing. Lets say for the sake of arguement that the servants of Bliar are not lying and that alcohol sellers won’t be using the identity verification service. That doesn’t mean that they won’t write down your card number on the recipt. It won’t stop anyone from writing down your card number anywhere you present it. It won’t stop them photocopying your card and attaching it to your application for whatever you are applying for. The fact of the matter is, that once you enter this system you are compromised; everyone will eventually get the details of your number, attach it to everything that you do and you will be just like those poor Koreans.

Note how there is nothing about the restrictions on who can take a copy of your card, and what they can do with that copy. The alcohol seller should at the very least, be forbidden to use your card details for any reason whatsoever. He should be forbidden from storing that copy or selling that copy to anyone. He should not be allowed to record your transaction and NIR number against your purchace on your recipt…but they don’t care about that. In fact, thats a lie; they DO care about that – this ‘feature’ is the very merchandising of your data which makes the whole enterprise so vauable to government and business.

The final part of the second quote is most interesting.

From where is the NIR going to determine wether or not you have a criminal record? According to this, there is no section for such information on the register, maybe I’m not reading the list correctly.

If I am reading It correctly, this means that if you want to hire a nanny, you can take her card, swipe it in a terminal and then a separate database will be used to check wether or not this person has a criminal record. This immediately raises some questions.

Who will provide access to this separate database? Will everyone who is in the NIR also have an entry in this database of criminals, and when it is checked, will your entry either have a ‘criminal’ or ‘not criminal’ flag against your name? Will you have to pay for access? Will all NIR terminals be able to do this check, or will just the police be able to do it, or will some ‘accredited service’ (another sheep dip operation) be set up on every high street where you can check if people have criminal records or not? Will you, as the prospective nanny employer, be able to take her card from her and check it without her being there? Or will you have to go down to the local ‘ID Centre’ together? Will they print out a certificate saying that she has no criminal record, and if so, and she goes to get it herself, will you trust that the certificate has not been forged?

Do you get my drift? It’s total fucking insanity.

And of course, just because she doesn’t have a criminal record, that doesn’t mean that she is not a criminal or a ‘potential criminal‘.

This scheme is beyond madness. It is beyond Kafkaesqe. If you enroll in it, after everyting you have read, you are a traitor and a total madman.

After reading/writing posts on Blogdial about the linking of ID card uptake to passport applications as part of the government’s ‘volutary’ introduction of the NIR, http://irdial.com/blogdial/?p=108 and following, the following thoughts sprang immediately to mind:If I refuse an ID card, I will be unable to get a passport.

If I cannot get a passport, I am for all intents and purposes interned in my own country.

My government cannot deny my travel and/or entry and exit to my own country.

Therefore it follows: passports must not be required for a British citizen to transit UK borders.

Could this last part be true? I had no idea.

So I wrote to Charles Clarke (clarkec@parliament.uk). I have yet to receive a response.

I wrote to the Home Office general enquiries address. I have yet to receive a response.

I wrote to my MP, Hugh Bayley, who is one of the least rebellious members of the Labour party and has consistently voted in favour of the introduction of ID cards.

He is a typical, spineless, mindless, gimp of a career politician.

I wrote to him and he failed to answer my questions. I am a constituent of his. He works for me. I remind him of this fact. It is something to remember. They work for you.

I wrote to the UK Passport Service and asked them what exactly are “the legal requirements for a UK citizen entering and leaving the UK of their own free will.”

They replied:

A person who is a British citizen is not subject to immigration control and is free to enter or leave the United Kingdom without restriction. A British citizen who travels on a passport issued by another country will need to apply for a Certificate of Entitlement to the Right of Abode to be endorsed in his passport to confirm he has unrestricted entry to this country.

I was stunned! What did this mean? As a lay reader I immediately thought, there is NO requirement for a passport! I can come and go as I please!

And if I decide to use a second passport, perhaps Irish, or Canadian, or one obtained as outlined at sites such as http://www.escapeartist.com/passports/passports.htm all I need is a stamp showing I have the Certificate of Entitlement to the Right of Abode. Then I’d be free from having to ever enter the NIR. Right?

Well, obviously I can’t be right. There must be some legal requirements stipulated? Some guidelines as to how I prove I am a British citizen? And the CoERA… will application for this stamp be subject to NIR enrolement?

First, on the requirements, all I can find is actually on the CoERA page…

2. THE RIGHT OF ABODE 2.1 If you have the right of abode in the United Kingdom, this means that you are entirely free from United Kingdom immigration control. You do not need to obtain the permission of an immigration officer to enter the United Kingdom, and you may live and work here without restriction. 2.2 However, you must prove your claim by production of either: a) a passport describing you as a British citizen or as a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies having the right of abode in the United Kingdom; or b) a certificate of entitlement to the right of abode in the United Kingdom issued by or on behalf of the Government of the United Kingdom.

So a UK passport may be required, although the expiry date remains in question: why should a passport allow free travel one day, and not the next, due to an arbitrary 10-year limit? Is even an expired passport proof of British citizenship?

Are other documents also valid? A birth certificate, for example, which is required in order to get a passport! It seems that I would have to wade through: “The law covering the right of abode in the United Kingdom is contained in the Immigration Act 1971, the British Nationality Act 1981 and the regulations made under them.” in order to find the details. But I would like it stated in clear, factual, lay terms by the UKPS or the Home Office, if possible. As for the CoERA stamp, the application at present seems to be postal only. No interview, no data-rape.

To summarise the current situation: I remain confused as to the exact requirements outlined in my communication with UKPS and on their webiste. I have therefore asked for clarification on exactly what this (a British citizen is not subject to immigration control and is free to enter or leave the United Kingdom without restriction) means in practical and legal terms.

The answers to these questions must be found. If you can help, get in touch. If you know the current legal status, get in touch. If you want to prevent the government from closing every loophole and interning British citizens for want of a ‘voluntary’ NIR entry, help us to know the facts as they stand, so that we may exploit this loophole and disempower the NIR.

Update: Fla. residents’ data exposure a statewide issue
Social Security numbers, bank info is available via county Web sites

News Story by Jaikumar Vijayan

APRIL 11, 2006 (COMPUTERWORLD) – The Social Security numbers, driver’s license information and bank account details belonging to potentially millions of current and former residents of Florida are available to anyone on the Internet because sensitive information has not been redacted from public records being posted on county Web sites.Although questions about the availability of personal data online initially focused on Broward County, an official there stressed today that all counties in Florida are subject to the same state law. A spot check of other county Web sites today confirmed that sensitive data is easily available through public property records.

In fact, according to Sue Baldwin, director of the Broward County Records Division, counties across the nation face the same issue.

“Land records are public all over the country. This is not a new situation,” said Baldwin, adding that the same issue affects “all the counties in Florida … [and] lots of states.”

In fact, the Ohio secretary of state is being sued for posting residents’ Social Security numbers for years on state Web sites where publicly searchable records are stored (see “Ohio secretary of state sued over ID info posted online”).

“All this information has been out there and available since the beginning of time,” Baldwin said. “It was out there, and the people who were educated about it knew it was there. It’s been online since 1999.”

She noted that the information on the Web is in full compliance with state statutes that require counties to post public documents on the Internet.

Bruce Hogman, a county resident who raised concerns about the availability of information with the Broward County Records Division about two weeks ago, said it poses a serious risk of identity theft and fraud.

The exposure stems from the county’s failure to redact, or remove, sensitive data from images of public documents such as property records and family court documents, Hogman said. Included in the documents publicly available are dates of birth and Social Security numbers of minors, images of signatures, passport numbers, green-card details and bank account information.

“Here is the latest treasure trove available to identity thieves, and it is free to the public, courtesy of the Florida state legislature in its great Internet savvy,” Hogman said. The easy availability of such sensitive data also poses a security threat at a time of heightened terrorist concerns, he said. […]

Until the county can act, people who want sensitive information removed from an image or a copy of a public record can individually request that in writing, she said. Such a request must specify the identification page number that contains the Social Security number or other sensitive information.The county also created up an e-mail in-box that allows people to file their requests via e-mail. That address is: removepersonalinfo@broward.org.

“We have provided information pertaining to requesting redaction of protected information on our Web site at www.broward.org/records, since 2002,” Baldwin said. Since Hogman expressed his concerns, the county has made the redaction-request information more visible online.

“Aside from making the redaction- request process as user-friendly and speedy as possible, I do not have the independent authority to take any additional action regarding removing material from the public records,” Baldwin said.

She added that the information available on the Web is also freely available for public purchase and inspection at the county offices. “Professional list-making companies have always purchased copies of records and data from recorders to use in the creation of specialized marketing lists, which they sell,” she said. So too have title insurance underwriters and credit-reporting agencies.

Given that public records have been readily available, Baldwin called concerns about posting them online “a tempest in a teapot,” saying “most people’s documents don’t have [sensitive] stuff in them. There are relatively few documents that have that kind of information.”

She also said that residents concerned about personal data that may be online should check to see if information is accessible that should not be and formally request that it be removed.

“People have to assume some responsibility,” Baldwin said. “At least now people can look at this stuff and say, ‘I don’t want people looking at this’ and ask [officials] to take it off. This is a way for citizens to be informed and to manage their documents. They should regard this as an opportunity.”

Hogman, who wants the records taken down until a solution is found, said he has contacted several people — including state legislators, both of the state’s U.S. senators, the FBI and the Federal Trade Commission. So far, he has not heard back from anyone except Baldwin.

“In my estimation, ‘do nothing’ is not a good solution because it leaves the information out there for public viewing ” he said. […]

AND THERE YOU HAVE IT.

Once again, the future of Britian is clear to see from those countries that have rushed headlong into the database abyss. You should not under any circumstances put your data into the NIR. That means, you should not renew your passport if you cannot do so without having your finger prints taken, your eyes scanned and an NIR number issued to you. If you allow this, you WILL become a victim like those poor unfortunate Koreans and the unwitting americans who are being bought and sold like cows.

For months, the police were chasing a man who was hawking illegal goods on the Internet: 13-digit identity numbers and other personal data that people in this highly wired country must submit to join most members-only Web sites.

When last week they finally arrested the man, identified only by his last name, Song, they found that he was leading a 12-person ring that was selling compact disks that contained personal data for as many as 7.7 million people – names, identity numbers, home and e- mail addresses, phone numbers and Web site log-ons.

The scale of the alleged crime convinced the government that it could no longer delay a planned overhaul of the country’s online identification systems – even though many Web site operators say they fear that the methods being tested are too cumbersome and will stifle Internet growth in South Korea.

“It’s a reality we are facing,” said Ahn Sun, a police investigator. “Your personal data, and mine, are very likely out there circulating.”

Song sold his CDs mainly to telemarketers, but data brokers like him – who are legion in this country, according to the police – are an enormous cause of concern to privacy advocates in South Korea, where 75 percent of the population has access to a broadband connection.

Most South Korean Web sites require members to register by presenting a name and matching 13-digit “resident registration number.”

The number, issued by the government to every South Korean at birth, is the closest thing the country has to a human bar code. For four decades, it has been a dominant form of identification, used when people buy a house, open a bank account or apply for a library card. The first six digits are the holder’s year, month and date of birth. The numbers also reveal sex and place of birth.

An online identification system based on real names and resident numbers is easy to use. The information helps fight the spread of libelous Web postings, a growing social problem here. And for Web site operators, it helps keep out minors and tailor services according to a customer’s sex and age group.

The system, however, has a big problem: It is relatively easy to steal real names and their matching numbers.

The police say that some people with access to the databases of businesses that store customer information have been collecting them and selling them to data brokers. Web sites with poor firewalls are vulnerable to hackers who can extract the personal data. Indeed, it is possible to find names and matching ID numbers just by using Google.

A study by the Ministry of Information and Communication last year found that personal data of 620,000 members from 1,950 Web sites were floating around the Net. Last year, 9,830 victims of resident number theft filed reports with the government-run Korea Information Security Agency.

“It has become too easy to get random resident numbers,” said Kim Young Hong at Citizens’ Action Network, which campaigns for greater online privacy. “The resident number no longer serves as a proper way of identification.”

In February, South Koreans were awakened to the problem when NCSoft, the largest online game company in the country, said 200,000 names and resident numbers that had been used to log on to its popular Lineage fantasy game were taken from data that had been stolen. South Koreans rushed to check the Web site and others to see whether they had accounts they had never signed up for.

In the Lineage game, players accumulate virtual munitions called “items.” The game is so popular here that the items are often bought and sold for real money – and some maintain that Chinese gamers were entering the South Korean Web site using stolen identities to make money.

“The government is introducing alternative systems that have a stronger identification power, protect privacy and help prevent the illegal use of IDs even if they are leaked,” said Park Tae Hee, of the Ministry of Information and Communication. “Web site operators don’t seem eager to embrace them, but the government will push them hard.”

The ministry is testing five new ways to identify Web surfers on its home page and five other sites. Under the new system, users must submit either a digital identity certificate or a new 13-digit “cyber resident number” that they can get from government-designated certifying agencies, instead of the traditional resident number.

After the trial runs and feedback, the government said it planned to require Web sites to adopt one of the methods by the beginning of next year. Meanwhile, it is asking Web portals to start using the new methods voluntarily, but few seem eager.

To get a digital signature certificate, an applicant must fill out a form, pay a fee and wait as long as three days. To get the new resident number, an applicant must supply the agency with more personal and sensitive data, like a bank account or credit card number and the matching password, in addition to the traditional resident number. Unlike the traditional number, the new number can be changed by its holder.

“We completely agree that we need a new system,” said Kim Sung Ho of Kinternet, a lobby for portals, game sites and other Internet-based companies. “But the new procedures are not convenient for users. Such cumbersome systems may hurt the growth of the Internet industry.

[…]

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/10/business/idtheft.php#

AND THERE YOU HAVE IT.

This is EXACTLY what is going to happen to you if you enter the NIR, exactly as was predicted in that anonmous email, that lying scumbag running dog Andy Burnham said was ‘ridiculous’.

Only the stupidest of the stupid will willingly enter into this system. Only a venal government of criminals would forcibly introduce such a system into a country that is mercifully free of unique identifying numbers for their citizens.

Note that “The resident number no longer serves as a proper way of identification.” meaning that once your number leaks, it becomes anyone’s property it will be abused widely, cannot be trusted, and the excersise of setting the system up in the first place is a total waste of time and money.

Now they are trying to shackle the genie that is out of the bottle, by making people enter into another system, which they have to pay for, to try and fix the problem caused by the unique number issued to each Korean.

In Britain, there is no problem to fix because no one is issued with a unique number. As soon as this ceases to be the case, we open up a pandora’s box of problems that the taxpayer will have to pay to fix, with ever more intrusive systems. And thieves will have your low hanging fruit, your fucking balls, at their beck and call.

This is ‘Why You Should’nt Register at the NIR, part 5’ btw.

This story about physical data traces on hard disks was on the digg front page. (A known problem addressed by a number of programs). But it raises a few questions:

Will the server disks for the NIR have an audited destruction procedure?
Likewise all disks for companies and services accessing NIR information?
Will ‘free space’ on such disks be frequently and systematically erased?
Will there be enforcable methods for immediately erasing data in temporary files on all computers accessing NIR information?

Every time you answered ‘probably not’ is an opportunity for NIR information to be stored onto a hard disk and retrieved in a way similar to the article (and there are plenty of other ways). Every such answer is another reason not to register.

And when I say all computers I include your local NHS Trust, your banking & mortgage adviser, DVLA, car rental firms, IPS, travel agents, any company that verifies credit card purchases agianst NIR, law enforcement officers here and abroad (and companies with RIPA powers), etc, etc.

Alarm over shopping radio tags

By David Reid Click reporter

RFID technology broadcasts information to electronic readers

Supermarkets have already brought everything under the sun under one roof, and along the way been accused of denuding the High Street of butcher, baker and candlestick-maker.

Now they are introducing a new technology that some say threatens a fundamental invasion of our privacy.

We are all familiar with barcodes, those product fingerprints that save cashiers the bother of keying in the code number of everything we buy.

Now, meet their replacement: the RFID tag, or radio frequency ID tag.

These smart labels consist of a tiny chip surrounded by a coiled antenna.

Good tracking

While barcodes need to be manually scanned, RFID simply broadcasts its presence and data to electronic readers.

It means the computer networks of companies can track the position and progress of billions of products on rail, road, sea and shelf.

You start to ask yourself: ‘who has the ability to read the chips and what do they do with the information?’ Vint Cerf, internet pioneer

Albrecht Von Truchsess, from the German supermarket chain Metro Group, which uses this technology, says: “RFID really brings a revolution to everything that is transported from one point to the other, and in the future you will have it really on everything.

“That means that we don’t have to do anything while the goods are on the way from the production site to our stores. It is just done automatically.”

For all the benefits the technology promises, the roll-out of RFID is in danger of being derailed by the public’s perception of it.

A Christian author in the US, for example, has just published a book claiming RFID will evolve into the mark of the beast featured in Revelation and presage the end of the world.
[…]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/4886598.stm 

David Reid is a total dingbat.

What he has completely missed is that combined with the NIR, when you throw away that beer can with an RFID tag on it, someone can know that it was you that left the beer can in the street. Of course, it was not YOU that left it in the street, because as a BLOGDIAL reader, you do not litter; but if the garbage bag being used to transport your refuse to the tip splits, and then drops your garbage in the street, you will be fined, and will have to prove that it was not you that did the littering.
These systems are infinitely more dangerous when a national ID card is in place. You might say that, “I wont have to show my card unless I am buying alcohol or cigarrettes, so RFID cant track my purchase of bread”. This is an incorrect assessment. If you pay by credit card and have your identity checked with the NIR, your number will be connected to every item that you purchased, and its unique RFID tag serial number.

All of these stories relate directly to ID cards and the NIR. To leave them out of the picture in an article like this is simply wrong, especially when you are discussing the privacy aspects of this technology.

Welcome to the new series ‘Why You Should’nt Register at the NIR’, where we give examples of how your life will be impacted by obeying the ID card legislation.

This is from the Guardian:

TV Licensing knows you’ve bought a TV

Picture a world where innocent shopping transactions must be reported to the authorities, who can then persecute the shopper. Vicky Kennard wanted to buy a present for her mother-in-law and ordered a video and DVD player from Dixons. It was to be delivered directly to her mother-in-law’s address, but nevertheless Kennard – who does not own a television – was contacted soon afterwards by TV Licensing. She was told that Dixons had informed it of her purchase and that she must either buy a licence, prove someone else in the house had one, or provide the name and address of the person she had bought the video player for. “Surely under the Data Protection Act, Dixons had no right to pass on my details,” Kennard says. In fact, Dixons and all other dealers are required by the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1967 to provide TV Licensing with names and addresses of everyone who buys or hires TV-related equipment within 28 days of the purchase. Otherwise they face a fine.

Guardian

Now magnify this to everything you buy.

Someone somewhere, or even worse, some computer somewhere, will know what you have boutght and where, and then will tax you accordingly. This is already happening without a national ID card; imagine what they will be able to do with the system up and running.

And now, this illustrates once again, the dangers of insider shenanigans at the NIR:

Officer sold secrets to gangsters

Merseyside Police say O’Leary’s behaviour was ‘despicable’

A policeman who sold surveillance secrets to gangsters has been jailed for three-and-a-half years. Former Merseyside officer Gregory O’Leary, 39, gained information from force computers which was then sold to the underworld for £1,000 a time.

O’Leary, who drove a BMW with a personal number plate, admitted six counts of misconduct in office at an earlier Liverpool Crown Court hearing.

Mr Justice Openshaw said other officers would be “outraged by his treachery”.

The court heard O’Leary, who joined the force in 1985, could have made up to £80,000 from selling information.

BBQ

And there you have it. An insider selling access to private and sensitive information to the highest bidder. Now; imagine the NIR; the aladins cave of information on everyone. Imagine one insider who manages to get a copy of a large part of it. Such information would be worth much more than £80,000. Also, since this information is unique, every time this happens and the bulk data is copied, eventually it will be possible to create a mirror copy of the entire NIR database of biometric data. This data will never be out of date, since it is unique to each individual.

This sort of thing has happened before of course, specifically where the girlfriends of criminals got jobs with the sections of the police service dealing with computers so that their lovers could keep tabs on investigations.

You should not put your data into this system under any circumstances. As soon as you do it, you put yourself at risk, and of course, the more people who enter the register, the more valuable it becomes.

Finally, that BBQ article says that:

Mr Justice Openshaw said other officers would be “outraged by his treachery”.

Well, outraged is a llittle strong. It is a well known fact that ex police officers with friends still in the force check out people all the time. A little bird told me that she uses her friends in the force to check out potential tennants to see if they have criminal records or not. Once again, this abuse is happening right now, and the NIR will only make it worse.
Where is part one of this series you say? Why, its right here.

If you find an example that should appear in this series, email irdial@gmail.com

Compulsory ID cards are nothing new in the UK. They were issued to all British civilians during World War II. That is until one ordinary man said no.

Clarence Willcock, a 54-year-old dry cleaner from suburban north London, must rank as one of the unlikeliest Davids ever to take on a Goliath.

Mr Willcock was stopped on December 7 1950 while driving his car along Ballard’s Lane by uniformed police constable Harold Muckle, who demanded to see the motorist’s identity card.

Mr Willcock refused. Pc Muckle told him to produce the compulsory card at the local station with 48 hours. “I will not produce it at any police station,” Mr Willcock replied.

With this act of defiance, Mr Willcock brought crashing down a giant bureaucracy which had, since the outbreak of World War II in 1939, forced an identity card on every civilian in the UK – man, woman and child.

When Willcock v Muckle eventually reached the High Court in 1951, Lord Chief Justice Goddard said the continuation of the wartime ID card scheme was an “annoyance” to much of the public and “tended to turn law-abiding subjects into law breakers”. […]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3129302.stm

[…]

A BLOGDIAL post from April 24th 2004
And I add today, from the same article:

“Let us have the credit for ‘setting the people free’,” wrote one Treasury minister in 1952, though he was really gleefully looking forward to “the consequential staff economies”.

The demise of the system was forecast while the fight against Hitler was still fierce. In October 1944, Registrar General Sir Earnest Holderness said that he did “not believe that public opinion will stand for the retention of [national registration] in its present form”.

Sir Ernest reasoned that once law-abiding citizens no longer needed to provide details of their address to ensure their ration allowances, they would not bother to keep their ID cards up to date merely because the government asked them to.

And what, my dear friends, is the difference between the British of 1952 and the British of 2006? Just what is it that they have been putting in the water that has turned a population of real people into sheeple?

How did they do it?

How much lower can they all sink before they are literally turned into cattle?

Everything says “this should not be happening” but it is, and…I can’t wake up!