If the government can benefit, it must be kept secret
If the businesses can benefit, it must be tolerated
If the middle class can benefit, it must be licensed
If everyone can benefit, it must be taxed
If a minority can benefit, it must be criminalised
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 21:54Plans 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.
Blair attack ‘morally justified’
George Galloway met Fidel Castro in Cuba this weekMP George Galloway has said it would be “morally justified” to assassinate Tony Blair, but stressed he was not calling for his death. In an interview with GQ magazine he was asked whether a suicide bomb attack on Mr Blair would “be justified as revenge for the war on Iraq”.
He said it would be morally equivalent to Mr Blair “ordering” Iraqi deaths.
But Mr Galloway said he would not support an attack and would tell the authorities if he knew of any plot.
Alert the authorities?
In the interview, former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan asked: “Would the assassination of, say, Tony Blair by a suicide bomber, if there were no other casualties, be justified as revenge for the war on Iraq?”
The Respect MP replies: “Yes it would be morally justified. I am not calling for it, but if it happened it would be of a wholly different moral order to the events of 7/7.
“It would be entirely logical and explicable, and morally equivalent to ordering the deaths of thousands of innocent people in Iraq as Blair did.”
He was also asked whether he would alert the authorities if he knew Mr Blair was to be assassinated by Iraqis.
Mr Galloway replied: “My goodness this is a moral maze.
“Yes I would, because such an operation would be counterproductive because it would just generate a new wave of anti-Muslim, anti-Arab sentiment whipped up by the press.
“It would lead to new draconian anti-terror laws, and would probably strengthen the resolve of the British and American services in Iraq rather than weaken it. So yes, I would inform the authorities.”
Respect says Mr Galloway is “sticking by” his comments.
In a statement, the MP said: “Like the prime minister’s wife commenting on suicide bombings in Israel I understand why such desperate acts take place and why those involved might believe such actions are morally justifiable.
“From the point of view of someone who has seen their country invaded and their family blown apart it’s possible, of course, for them to construct a moral justification.
“But I’ve made my position clear. I would not support anyone seeking to assassinate the prime minister.
“That’s why I said in the interview I would report to the authorities any such plot that I knew of.
“What I did make abundantly clear to Piers Morgan in the GQ interview is that I would like to see Tony Blair in front of a war crimes tribunal for sending this country to war illegally and for the appalling human consequences which resulted. That’s what I will continue to press for.”
‘Disgrace’
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell condemned the comments.
“If Mr Galloway is being accurately reported, he could well be regarded as providing encouragement to someone who might be disposed to carry out a crime of that kind,” said Sir Menzies.
“No politician, ever, by act, word, or deed either expressly or by implication, should give any support to the notion that violence might be justified.”
Labour MP Stephen Pound told The Sun newspaper the remarks were “disgraceful”.
He said: “These comments take my breath away. Galloway is disgraceful and truly twisted.
“Every time you think he can’t sink any lower he goes and stuns you again. It’s beyond reprehensible to say it would be justified for a suicide bomber to assassinate anyone.”
Mr Galloway has been in Cuba this week, where he made a surprise appearance on live television alongside Fidel Castro.
[…]
Sir Menzies Campbell, Britians own Ralph Nader, making sure the votes of millions are wasted year after year, a man who cannot understand the english language:
“No politician, ever, by act, word, or deed either expressly or by implication, should give any support to the notion that violence might be justified.”
??? Utter, unrefined bullshit; and Bliar has done none of this how exactly? If the answer is that he has, then Menzies agrees with internationally renowned hero G. Galloway that Bliar should be hauled up to the court at Den Hague on a charge of mass murder, crimes against humanity and illegal warfare all of which he unjustifiably ordered. “I was just following Bush” will not be taken by the court as a viable excuse.
Honestly, if this is the quality of thinking that comes out of the Lib Dems, they should give up right now and stop wasting everyone’s time.
On 22 May the German Constitutional Court has declared illegal under the German Constitution the practice of screening data across several private and public databases in order to find potential terrorists (“sleepers”). Several federal states will now have to change their police laws. The decision does not make data screening (“Rasterfahndung”, literally: “grid investigation”, usual transliterations: “dragnet investigation” or “data trawl”) completely illegal, but binds it to very narrow conditions. The measure is still legal for investigations in specific criminal cases, as it was used against the left-wing guerrilla RAF in the 1970s, when the “Rasterfahndung” was invented. But for crime prevention purposes, it can only be done in the presence a concrete danger for the lives or liberties of persons or for the existence of the Federal Republic of Germany or a federal state (Land). This requires factual indicators for an imminent attack. A general threat condition or foreign tensions like after 9/11 2001 are not sufficient.
The future UK Bill of Rights will similarly protect the population against State-sponsored data trawling, of course it will in fact go further than the German Constitution as the Bill of Rights will only contain attestations of our Rights and not the rug pulling of their Constitution.
Even so you can see that a Constitution that protects peoples rights ‘works’ when the State isn’t allowed to disregard it into oblivion (c.f. USA)
As their website seems to be unresponsive I shall blockquoth the rest for you below (at least read the very last line.), incidentally there is another article about German Greens are questioning the legality of the EU directive on mandatory retention of communications traffic data, you should subscribe!
subscribe by e-mail
To: edri-news-request@edri.org
Subject: subscribe.The Federal Police Agency (Bundeskriminalamt) had coordinated such screenings, in cooperation with the state-level police authorities after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. Universities, private companies, private security firms, public transport institutions, facility providers, municipal authorities, and the Federal Register of Foreign Residents were required to submit comprehensive information they had on anybody matching a set of criteria (male, aged between 18 and 40, student or former student, country of origin mainly Muslim) to the state police agencies. The latter did a screening run for matches across the different submitted databases that combined included more than 8 million people. The 31 988 hits were stored in a central file called “sleepers” and again screened by the Federal Police Agency against a database that included up to 300 000 persons who held a pilot license, were supposed to be dangerous, or matched some other criteria. The remaining several thousand persons (matches) was manually reviewed by the state police agencies. The whole exercise did not lead to a single terrorist suspect or prosecution.
The plaintiff, a Morrocan citizen who studied in Germany in 2001, argued that his right for informational self-determination was breached, that the screening was an especially severe breach of fundamental rights because it took place unbeknownst to the people affected, that it was not proportionate because of the lack of factual indicators for an imminent terrorist attack in Germany, and that the criteria were discriminating him and fellow Muslims on the basis of religion. The lower courts had overturned his arguments.
The official data protection commissioners, the opposition parties Greens, Liberals and Socialists, and civil liberties groups applauded the court decision and demanded an immediate stop of plans for similar measures like communications traffic data retention, license-plate screening, or the creation of new investigative powers for the Federal Police Agency for the prevention of crimes. A spokesperson of the federal Ministry of the Interior said that in international terrorism, there was only a thin line between a general and a concrete threat condition, making it difficult to apply the decision. The Bavarian Minister of the Interior, Günther Beckstein, called the decision “a black day for the effective fight against terrorism in Germany.” The association of student representatives, which had supported the plaintiff, demanded a “personal apology” from the responsible authorities for the illegal and unconstitutional discrimination of foreign and Muslim students in Germany.
Up to eleven federal states will now have to change their police laws and criminal procedures acts. The decision will also have an impact on the discussion about the legality of mandatory communications data retention in Germany. The Constitutional Court explicitly re-emphasised in the reasons given for the judgement the “strict prohibition, beyond statistical purposes, of the storage of personally identifiable data on stock.” (“auf Vorrat”). “Vorratsdatenspeicherung” – literally: “data storage on stock” – is the German term for data retention.
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. […]
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. […]
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.
Some of the UK’s most eminent doctors have mounted a direct challenge to the integration of complementary medicine into the NHS, on the day that Prince Charles urges the World Health Assembly in Geneva to back the cause of alternative and complementary medicines alongside scientifically-proven treatments.
Thirteen senior doctors have written to every hospital and primary care trust in the UK urging them not to suggest anything but evidence-based medicine to their patients.
There has been growing concern among some in medical and scientific circles about the increasing referral by GPs to complementary medicine practitioners. Some GPs use therapies such as acupuncture and homeopathy on their patients; others are increasingly willing to send them to complementary therapists in cases where they cannot themselves provide treatment.
Signatories to the letter include Sir James Black, who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1988, Sir Keith Peters, president of the Academy of Medical Science, and, according to the Times, six fellows of the Royal Society. Yesterday a spokesman for the Royal Society said that it had not organised the letter, but acknowledged that the society took a sceptical view. “As far as the society is concerned, it has always said that alternative medicine needs to be assessed on the same sort of criteria as conventional medicine – but we have not expressed a view about its role within the NHS,” said Bob Ward.
The letter was organised by Michael Baum, a cancer specialist who is emeritus professor of surgery at University College London. Edzard Ernst, professor of complementary medicine at Exeter University, is another signatory.
The doctors urge primary care trusts not to spend money on unproven therapies at a time when the NHS is short of cash. It criticises two recent initiatives of the Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Medicine – a patient guide to complementary medicine, for which it was given government funds – and last year’s Smallwood report, which purported to find that complementary medicine on the NHS was cost-effective. […]
Look carefully at the authors and signatories of this letter: ’emeritus professor’, ‘Nobel Prize winner’, ‘president of the Academy of Medical Science’, ‘fellows of the Royal Society’…’the UK’s most eminent doctors’.
All of these men are interested in only one thing; thier own positions of power and social standing. They say that they want to save the NHS money. If that were the case, they would not care how the patient was treated, as long as she was treated and no longer a financial burden on the system.
The fact of the matter is that these ‘doctors’ are not in the slightest bit interested in the health of the patient; they are only interested in the primacy of thier philosophy. Nowhere is there any mention that harm can come to a patient from getting accupuncture treatment (for example) and of course, those true, patient centered scientists and medical practitioners know for a fact that accupuncture is so powerful that it can be used in the place of anesthesia for surgery.
Many of these people are not only morally bankrupt but they are completely corrupt, owning shares in pharmaceutical companies, whose products if abandoned in favour of ‘alternative’ medicine, would cause financial loss to these very same venal drug peddlers. They therefore have a double cause to be against the NHS adopting patient centered medicine; not only will people ignore their built up staus, but they will face financial ruin also.
Thankfully those health workers on the front line, dealing with the scarcity of resources both physical and financial will use anything to get the job done, not only for those reasons, but because they are in constant contact with human sufffering, are actually interested in alleviating that suffering, rather than being concerned about the method of relief above all else.
31 December 2005
I wrote the following document in 2004 when it became clear to me that AT&T, at the behest of the National Security Agency, had illegally installed secret computer gear designed to spy on internet traffic. At the time I thought this was an outgrowth of the notorious Total Information Awareness program, which was attacked by defenders of civil liberties. But now it’s been revealed by The New York Times that the spying program is vastly bigger and was directly authorized by President Bush, as he himself has now admitted, in flagrant violation of specific statutes and constitutional protections for civil liberties. I am presenting this information to facilitate the dismantling of this dangerous Orwellian project. […]
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70947-0.html?tw=wn_technology_1
Note how this corageous man understands that these ‘Orwellian projects’ can be dismantled.
This is the most important understanding and fundamental point that anyone today can grasp; none of this nonsense that they are trying to roll out is permanent. Any and all of it can be removed and destroyed.
http://blog.wired.com/27BStroke6/att_klein_wired.pdf
T-SHIRT! T-SHIRT! T-SHIRT!
T-tags: europe blair idcards bush iraq immigration breaking-news Current Affairs
The (seemingly much more beautiful) DS Lite is going to be released in a month in the UK. This may mark a long awaited return to thumb joggling! And on my own console, ha!!!
Nintendo will release the DS Lite in the UK on 23 June, the videogames pioneer said today. The redesigned handheld console will set British buyers back £100. It will cost €150 (£102) in continental Europe, the company added.
Taking a lead from Apple’s iPod, Nintendo said the DS Lite will be available at launch in two colours: glossy black and shiny white.
…
Reg
Don’t Vote Labour Again
The UK based, xVista says that it has developed a portable iris scanning and verification system which could be built into a mobile phone. Developed through a US$3.4 million, six year partnership with the University of Sussex, the xVista system is designed to discreetly and securely map the iris for individual characteristics. The iris is first registered on to a central database creating a template that can be checked against all further scans to verify the user’s identity.
The system is capable of running from any low power computing device or camera equipped mobile phone. A 256 Mb mobile phone memory card will be able to hold over 250,000 separate iris templates and from a database of 1,000,000 irises, it will take less than one second for it to verify an individual iris.
Previously the realm of science fiction, biometrics are increasingly becoming an important part of modern security systems, with a pilot iris scanning scheme having recently been introduced into passport control at Heathrow’s Terminal One. There are now plans to introduce similar biometric security systems into other airports across the country.
Karlis Obrams Managing Director of xVista says “The xVista technology performs a similar task to the traditional signature, photograph or pin number in confirming an individual’s identity, but is far more reliable. The fact that the system can run from portable devices like the mobile phone and SIM card opens up fantastic potential for its use, making it far more effective than other scanning systems that are usually bulky and limited to fixed points.
“Using an airport as an example, the xVista system can be deployed across all members of a security team in a discreet handheld device, enabling staff to know within seconds whether a pilot, crew member or baggage handler is who they say they are, offering peace of mind against threats such as identity theft and terrorism.”
xVista is currently in discussions with the Defence Diversification Agency – the government agency responsible for identifying new civil technology with potential for defence and homeland security application.
[…]
Like I have said many times before, the police will have mobile thumbprint scanners to ID you whenever they cordon off an area and do a sweep. Now they will have a very inexepensive way to scan your eye for an instant check, and of course, they will use the GSM network both to connect to the NIR / IVS and to instantly collect any payment for the record check.
Think about it; anyone will be able to do a check on you with their mobile phone, and be charged, say, one pound to do it. That means that the system will be fleecing in millions of pounds per day as the perverted fetish for ID’ing people takes off.
And of course, that is what this really is, a perverted sexuall fetish, where people are allowed to ‘get into you’, and ‘get into your stuff’. The myriad ways that this is being done, the feindish permutations of different scenarios and devices is no different to the filthy sex toy industry, and the public are the unwilling providers of the soft flesh that is to be violated.
And now for the obligatory tearing apart:
University of Sussex
Shame on you. Shame on you for participating in something that is to be used to abuse millions of people. Shame on you for participating in fraud.
The iris is first registered on to a central database
Bad bad bad. But you know this.
Previously the realm of science fiction
Where it should have stayed, and to where it will eventually be resigned, filed under, “how we got the face of the future wrong”.
biometrics are increasingly becoming an important part of modern security systems
This is a double talk lie. Biometrics are not ‘modern’, and they do not provide security, as this line tries to imply.
The xVista technology performs a similar task to the traditional signature, photograph or pin number in confirming an individual’s identity, but is far more reliable.
This is a fantastic lie. You can change your signature whenever you like. No one ever made you sign you name in front of a guard in order to check your identity before letting you through a door; that is nonsense. Pin numbers and photographs can be changed; in essence, they are disposable. You can have a different picture for each of your photo IDs if you choose. Your iris is not disposable. Once you let it out, you can never get it back. Everyone knows that this technology is not reliable, and that is not a problem in itself, because these things can improve; the problem is that everyone is putting absolute trust in biometrics, meaning that if there is an error, it will be harder to get redress.
the xVista system can be deployed across all members of a security team in a discreet handheld device…
‘Security team’ means the Police. And they know it. And that’s bad.
Hundreds wrongly dubbed criminals
The CRB is an executive agency of the Home OfficeNearly 1,500 people have been wrongly labelled as criminals by the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB), it has emerged. The Mail on Sunday said the mistakes had led to some people being turned down for jobs or university places.
The Home Office said the errors arose when personal details were similar to those of people with a conviction, but were “a tiny proportion of cases”.
It said 90% of disputes were resolved within 21 days and, while errors were regrettable, it would not apologise.
Only 0.03% of the nine million “disclosures” the agency makes had been wrong in this way, it said.
[…]
“We err on the side of caution in these rare cases precisely because it is vital to ensure that the disclosure individuals do not fraudulently try to claim they have no criminal convictions when in fact they have.”
[…]
And there you have it. Because they are incapable of keeping records correctly, they ‘err on the side of caution’ and brand you as a criminal. Even though you have done nothing, they prevent you from going to university or getting a job, and then do not even have the decency to apologise. This short circuits the principle that you are presumed innocent until proven guilty. It short circuits the courts. It makes a mockery of every idea of justice held by decent people.
If the tories do not win the next election and the NIR / Identity Verification Service comes on line, the number of people suffering this nonsense will increase by orders of magnitute. This will not only be through the brute incompetence of the Home Office, but deliberate swapping of your identity for a criminal’s by employees of the government.
Of course, if you refuse to go into the system, you will not have your records in there to be swapped.
The ‘position’ of these animals is precisely the same as the DVLA and their attitude to the users when they get it wrong; they take no responsibility whatever for their own incompetence. You will not be entitled to compensation. You will not be able to sue them for defamation of character. You will simply be fucked, and there is nothing you will be able to do about it.
Now to those imbeciles who say, “checking that you do not have a criminal record will not be possible with the NIR; its not in the legislation”; you are truely amongst the most retarded of the retards. Not only will the NIR be used for this, but the Home Office says that you will be able to do this explicitly. This means that many people will be branded as criminals when they are no such thing, and then of course, there are the subtle sub-criminal gradations of activity that can brand you as an ‘unnaceptable type’. Buying ‘too much’ alcohol. Too many trips to the pharmacy. Too many stays in the same hotel in London when you are a Londoner. I’m sure that the Blogdialers can (and indeed they have) come up with their own scenarios.
I had the most unpleasant experience of having to speak to one of the reactionary, illiterate, educationally subnormal poorly spoken ‘men of the street’ yesterday, who trumpeted loudly that he would gladly hand over his DNA, eye scan and fingerprints, “to stop the baarstards”. It was when I pointed out to him the recent ‘scandals’ involving Whitehall, the Home Office, the Koreans, and the fact that (and this was the killer) he does everything he can to avoid paying VAT, and that his little games will be given ‘the kibosh’ by this scheme, that he blanched and turned completely against ID cards.
This subhuman, this idiot was screaming about how he didnt care who knew what alcohol he was buying and even said he would be willing to thumbscan for petrol…untill I pointed out to him that anyone that wanted to employ him would be able to find out how much alcohol he buys a week, whereupon he quickly retreated with a, “Oh! I see your point there”.
Honestly; its clear that there is MUCH more work that needs to be done, since the lowest common denominator still doesn’t get it!
