30 July 2008

Welcoming the findings of the Human Genetics Commission (HGC) Citizens’ Inquiry into DNA [1] NO2ID’s National Coordinator, Phil Booth [2], said
today:

Now its secret history of ethically dubious research [3] has been revealed, the lifelong retention of innocent and vulnerable people’s DNA on the database seems all the more sinister.

NO2ID applauds the Human Genetics Commission and its panel of ordinary citizens who, given a chance to question the experts, have arrived at the just and reasonable conclusion that the innocent, uncharged and rehabilitated should be removed from the DNA database.

NO2ID General Secretary Guy Herbert said:

It is heartening to find that the conclusion of a panel drawn from a broad range of backgrounds agrees with the expert view of the Nuffield Bioethics
Committee [4] – that a police DNA database is no place for the intimate samples of innocent people.

But suggesting a seperate government quango to administer the database only distracts from the fact that what is needed is not a new managing body but
simply clearer and more transparent oversight on how DNA records are stored, how they are used, and who they are used by.

The current police policy, of taking samples at every opportunity and refusing to delete any, will see the lives of millions of the tax-paying, law-abiding population recorded alongside alongside convicted criminals, and is unacceptable.

-ENDS-

Notes for editors:

1) Full report available from:

http://www.hgc.gov.uk/Client/library_category.asp?CategoryId=8

2) Phil Booth, NO2ID national coordinator, sat on the Advisory Panel to the Citizen’s Inquiry.

3) In its first report last week, the Ethics Group for the National DNA Database recommended that innocent people’s DNA be removed from the
database:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/2439927/DNA-samples-from-innocent-volunteers-should-be-destroyed-by-police,-says-The-Ethics-Group.html

4) From a report in September last year:

http://www.nuffieldbioethics.org/go/ourwork/bioinformationuse/publication_441.html

5) NO2ID is the UK-wide non-partisan campaign against ID cards and the database state. See http://www.no2id.net/dbstate.php for a list of ‘database
state’ initiatives that NO2ID is actively opposing.

15 July 2008

Reports from the Home Office suggest the draft Communications Data Bill contains yet more intrusive measures to snoop and spy on law abiding
citizens, perhaps even requiring ISPs or telecoms companies to allow the Home Office direct access to their networks [1].

Responding to issues raised by the Bill, Phil Booth, NO2ID [2] National Coordinator said:

While there is a place for the interception of telephone and internet communication when properly warranted and authorised by a court in the course of a specific criminal investigation, the idea of a giant monolithic database containing the phone and internet records of every British citizen is as monstrous in principle as it is technically absurd.

If true, this would effectively short circuit the negligible safeguards that currently exist and provide 1,400 public bodies [3] from the Post
Office to the Financial Services Authority with easy access to your data. It would end for all time the entirely reasonable presumption that your phone
records and internet use, for which YOU pay, would be kept private.

Not only another catastrophic blow to privacy, liberties and freedom from state interference, this – alongside cradle-to-grave monitoring through the
children’s database, ContactPoint, and the National Identity Scheme – will be another founding stone in building all that is required for a surveillance state.

-ENDS-

Notes for editors:

1) Much like the ‘Carnivore’ system developed by the FBI in the US.

2) NO2ID is the UK-wide non-partisan campaign against ID cards and the database state. See http://www.no2id.net/dbstate.php for a list of ‘database
state’ initiatives that NO2ID is actively opposing.

3) The government appears to want to avoid the controversy caused by giving, e.g. Local Authorities surveillance powers under the Regulation of
Investigative Powers Act (RIPA).

11 July 2008

Expressing profound disappointment at the far-from-radical recommendations of the Data Sharing Review [1] by the Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, and Director of the Wellcome Trust, Dr Mark Walport, NO2ID’s National Coordinator, Phil Booth, said:

The Review all but ignores the database state, yet strangely [2] aims to bolster the powers of the Information Commissioner’s Office and seeks to make life more convenient for medical researchers.

This hasn’t really done anything to protect ordinary individuals, and leaves the door wide open for your personal information to be further debauched by government.

All the spin is about a minor change to the electoral register – their ‘big change’ is to cut down junk mail, but what about the very real dangers of the National Identity Register [3], ContactPoint [4] and the NHS Secondary Uses Service [5]?

-ENDS-

Notes for editors:

1) http://www.justice.gov.uk/reviews/datasharing-intro.htm – full report available for download from this location at noon.

2) We refer you again to the authors of the report…

3) The linked databases at the heart of the National Identity Scheme (‘ID cards’). Fifty *categories* – not items – of information on everyone over the age of 16, including fingerprints and a detailed log of every ID check that will record, e.g. bank details, your GP or clinic visits, and provide convenient links to other sensitive personal information.

4) A database of details on every child in the country and their parents or carers, to be accessible to over 300,000 people working in social services.
The government’s own auditors have stated that ContactPoint could never be made fully secure.

5) Medical information shared via a BT-run service, Although supposedly anonymised, medical information is currently being shared across Primary
Care Trusts – and in some cases with commercial companies – ‘in the open’, i.e. in personally identifiable form.

6) NO2ID is the UK-wide non-partisan campaign against ID cards and the database state. See http://www.no2id.net/dbstate.php for a list of ‘database
state’ initiatives that NO2ID is actively opposing.