Personal data to be shared without consent
Published Friday 28th April 2006 09:18 GMT
The Government announced last week that data from the National Identity Register (NIR) will also be used as an adult population register for a range of novel data sharing functions.The Office of National Statistics had promoted a separate adult population register as part of the Citizen Information Project (CIP) for these functions, but the announcement states that the CIP project has been wound up and its functions incorporated into the wider use of NIR data. The announcement also changes many undertakings given to Parliament when it considered the ID Card legislation.Minutes released in relation to the CIP show the NIR will be used in conjunction with the Census and could check that citizens are eligible to vote at elections. Data from the NIR will also be shared with many public authorities so they can update their databases without the consent of the cardholder. Other changes also envisage the storage of medical records as part of the NIR.When these plans are put into effect, personal data from the NIR will be used for purposes unconnected with crime, terrorism, illegal employment and immigration – the
only purposes mentioned by Labour in its manifesto prepared for the 2005 General Election. The manifesto is important as the ID Card Act passed its Parliamentary stages in March after a dispute between the House of Commons and Lords over its wording.Minutes of meetings
available on the CIP’s website (7 page/22KB PDF) show that the Home Office:
- “has responsibility for delivering an adult population register that enables basic contact data held on NIR to be downloaded to other public sector stakeholders” (The “Treasury and Cabinet Office should ensure that NIR delivers CIP functionality as planned”);
- “takes responsibility for ensuring from around 2021 basic contact data held by stakeholders can be up-loaded to the NIR”;
- “should design the take-up profile of the NIR to be such that population statistics can be realised for the 2021 census”.
The CIP’s final report (29 page/404KB PDF) states (at page 17), that secondary legislation will allow “public services to be provided with NIR data without the need to obtain specific citizen consent”.
This wide ranging access to NIR data without consent of the citizen is a change from the explanations given to Parliament when it considered the ID Card legislation. On 5 October, MPs were told by Parliamentary under secretary Andy Burnham that: “Direct access to information held on the National Identity Register by anyone outside those responsible for administering the scheme will not be possible, only requests for information can be made by third parties. In the vast majority of cases, verification of information on the register will only be possible with the person’s consent.”
In October 2005, the Home Secretary reinforced this message and told the House of Commons: “What the Bill allows is for information to be provided from the register either with the consent of the individual or without that consent in strictly limited circumstances in accordance with the law of the land.”
On 10 January 2005, the CIP wrote to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister saying that: “The ID Card would seem to provide a logical way to confirm the identity and eligibility to vote in the longer term” and that the Electoral Register holds the same information on the NIR and that “there would seem scope here for collaboration between the two systems”. On 13th February 2006, the Government stated: “There is currently no proposal for these specifications to provide for two-way data-sharing with the proposed identity cards register”.
The CIP final report provides examples of how NIR data could be used:
- “DWP targeting the 300,000 eligible citizens not currently claiming pensions”;
- Taxation authorities “contacting employees required to complete self assessment”;
- Managing passport application peaks by getting customers to apply early;
- Department for Education and Skills “tracing children at risk via their guardians addresses”;
- “Local councils collecting debt from citizens who have moved to another authority”;
- “NHS targeting specific citizen groups for screening campaigns”; and
- “reducing the overall administrative burden on bereaved people”
The Sunday Times reported on 23 April that ministers are considering whether or not to enter health personal details as part of the ID Card holder’s details in the NIR. The newspaper reports that: “the Home Office wants cardholders to put personal health information on the cards to give doctors information for emergencies. Cardholders will also be urged to volunteer details of blood group, allergies, and whether they wish to donate organs”.
Although the storage of these medical details will require the consent of the cardholder, the step changes the position as stated during the passage of the ID Cards Bill. In the House of Lords, Baroness Scotland of Asthal told Peers on 30 January 2006 that it is clear that the register will not contain health records as “any addition to the list of information in Schedule 1 (the part of the ID Card legislation which describes the content of the NIR) would have to be consistent with the statutory purposes, which in effect rules out any possibility of adding, for example, medical or criminal records”.
The CIP Minutes also show that a draft of the 18 April announcement was prepared for release nine months earlier. The minutes state: “The board noted that the timing of the CIP announcement needed to be considered against the ID Cards programme.”
Copyright © 2006, OUT-LAW.com
OUT-LAW.COM is part of international law firm Pinsent Masons.
NOW YOU SEE.
They have tripped the switch to total control of everything you do, before it is even rolled out and in place. You see that NOTHING in here has anything to do with the stated original aims. As we all predicted, this is an instrument of TOTAL CONTROL OVER THE ORDINARY CITIZEN.
NO2ID’s Renew For Freedom is a great short term plan to deny uptake of the NIR, but in the long term we must formulate a plan that will permanently destroy this NIR and anything like it ever being proposed again.
In the first phase of this plan, we have to take control of our documentation on a permanent basis.
Update:
Minutes released in relation to the CIP show the NIR will be used in conjunction with the Census and could check that citizens are eligible to vote at elections.
My Emphasis. This means your religion WILL be recorded on the register, even if it is Jedi or ‘none’ because this was asked at the last census, and will most certainly be asked in the next:
And are there any amongst you who are retarded enough to believe that because this form says ‘voluntary’ that this is what it really means? We all know what ‘voluntary’ means to these venal gangsters don’t we now?!
The 2001 Census also took the following ‘race’ information:
They also took this, and more:
A list of everyone in your household
Household members and thier relationships within the household
Marital status
Are you a student
Have you ever worked
Are you looking for work
Full title of main job
How you travel to work
Your professional qualifications
Do you have a bath/shower and toilet
What is the lowest floor level of your accomodation
Do you own or rent
Who is your landlord
How many cars or vans owned
etc etc By all means, download a copy of the 2001 census form and read it. ALL of the information in the Census (and you can bet it will be longer than the last one) will be included in the NIR, and then all of that information will be available to EVERY CIVIL SERVANT, including council workers etc etc, you name it:
The CIP’s final report (29 page/404KB PDF) states (at page 17), that secondary legislation will allow “public services to be provided with NIR data without the need to obtain specific citizen consent”.
‘Public Services’ in this case means EVERY public servant; you must remember how computer terminals work, and how people can shoulder surf while an authorized person is logged in (for example). These people and the other CRIMINALS will get clandestine access to all of this.
Now that really is astonishing.
* “DWP targeting the 300,000 eligible citizens not currently claiming pensions”;
How do they know that its 300,000? Clearly they have enough information to make up this number; that means that they could reach each of these people right now, if they had the will. This is rather like those 1000+ prisoners who they released; they know where everyone is already, they just don’t have the will or organization to do things correctly. The NIR will not help them get organized.
* Taxation authorities “contacting employees required to complete self assessment”;
* Managing passport application peaks by getting customers to apply early;
* Department for Education and Skills “tracing children at risk via their guardians addresses”;
* “Local councils collecting debt from citizens who have moved to another authority”;
* “NHS targeting specific citizen groups for screening campaigns”;
Screening of people by the NHS is impossible without full medical information on every person being placed in the NIR. This means ALL your health records will be kept, including HIV status, vaccination status and ‘race’. Your ‘race’ will be kept because the treatments for some diseases like high blood pressure are different for people who have different genetic backgrounds. Sounds entirely reasonable right? The problem is that this information is available to everyone wether they need it or not, and wether you give permission to see it or not.
Genetic and hereditory diseases cannot be targeted unless your familial relationships are recorded in the NIR. This is why they want to put your children in there also. Once they have a profile of you, and all of your relatives, they can, say, mail all ‘black’ people to have their blood pressure checked, or mail all parents who have not vaccinated their children to say that they must do so or get a fine automatically sent to them.
* “reducing the overall administrative burden on bereaved people”
All of these points involve taking something away from the citizen. The NIR is about setting up a frictionless inescapable financial control net. Even the last point is not about helping the ‘administrative burden’ on bereaved people, it is about collecting ‘Death Duties’ in a more effecient way. Administrative Burdens are only felt by beaurocrats, Death Duties are what the relatives of the dead have to do to bury their loved ones and disperse their property according to a will. This government is expert at turning language inside out.
Finally:
The CIP Minutes also show that a draft of the 18 April announcement was prepared for release nine months earlier. The minutes state: “The board noted that the timing of the CIP announcement needed to be considered against the ID Cards programme.”
So, for NINE MONTHS the infinite pig ‘Bastard’ Burnham has known that they were going to fold the CIP into the NIR, and he knew what that meant while he lied to the public about what was explicitly planned. This should come as a surprise to no one.
Before your very eyes, and before the NIR has a single table in it, it is being specified as the ultime tool of control over the British Citizen. Every reassurance that was given on an already intolerable scheme has turned out to be a lie, and the proposal has uncloaked to be more horrible by orders of magnitde.
If you have been reading any of the forums where this is being discussed, you will find that people think the description in the Stonor email is ‘too far stretched’ (SIC) but in fact, it didn’t go far enough. The incorporation of the Census data, and the ability of any agency to be able to ‘upload to the NIR’ means that it will become a space of infinite storage for every detail of your life, and by every detail, I mean LITERALLY every detail, down to wether you have a loo or not.
This must be stopped. It must be stopped and prevented from ever being tabled again. We must stop it RIGHT NOW.