The ’stalker state’ census: pointless, out of date and wasteful – and that’s just what the government says about it.

NO2ID [1] say the census exemplifies the stalker state – an official obsession with documenting our private lives for no good reason and to no good effect. An exercise that was always controversial has been rendered pointless by a more mobile society and by alternatives that produce better quality, more timely information.

Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude [2] said last year there were alternatives to the census that could provide “better, quicker information more frequently and cheaper.” Eric Pickles MP reported how councils had been short-changed of government funding from use of out of date information from the 2001 census.

The government knows this, announcing this year’s census will be the last. But despite being an expensive and essentially pointless exercise, the 2011 census [3]:

• will ask the most personally invasive questions ever seen, about you, your job, visitors to your house and where they live.
• will not be confidential – but shared not just across government but to all 27 EU states, and even private researchers [4].
• will inflict punitive fines of £1,000 for those that refuse the intrusion.
• will cost £480m [5] to provide – eventually – information that is unverifiable and immediately out of date

Guy Herbert, General Secretary of NO2ID, said:

This census is an astonishing bureaucratic assault on every family’s privacy. The stalker state wants to know who you are, what you do, and now who you do it with – information the government *does not need* to get statistics for planning. It is private information that the government cannot protect, and should not collect.

“If David Cameron and Nick Clegg want to show that they mean their fine words about rolling back the database state, then they will reverse the stealthy changes that have been made to census confidentiality. The government should commit itself to keep census information fully confidential, and to destroy all the raw data when
it has been statistically tabulated, so that it cannot be used for other purposes.

ENDS

Notes:
(1) NO2ID is the national, non-partisan privacy campaign against the database state, of which the Identity cards scheme was the most visible part. For more information about other schemes NO2ID is opposing, see www.no2id.net/dbstate.php

(2) See: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/7882774/National-census-to-be-axed-after-200-years.html

(3) See linked documents at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/7882774/National-census-to-be-axed-after-200-years.html

(3) See linked documents at:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2007/18/section/39

(5) More than double the cost of the 2001 census.
See: http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2009/01/06/233910/Cost-of-2011-Census-spirals-despite-online-forms.htm

NO2ID (1) today joined privacy advocates across Europe in signing up to the Hands Off Biometrics Alliance launched by Dutch campaigner Robin Caron (2).

The Alliance will in a few weeks petition the Council of Europe in Strasbourg to require that European members demonstrate that any schemes involving fingerprint collection are necessary, in order to comply with the European Convention of Human Rights and court rulings. Under Article 52 of the Convention, citizens may request the Secretary General of the Council of Europe carry out an investigation – this is what the Alliance asks.

The process of destroying all the data gathered by the UK National Identity Card scheme began in January (3). However, Britain still takes from fingerprints everyone arrested and keeps them for ever, while other European nations, including the Netherlands, have started fingerprinting for passports or national identity cards and building large databases of their own.

NO2ID General Secretary Guy Herbert said:

“The coalition killed the ID scheme, but that was a project that had had little impact. It is now more than two years since the European Court of Human Rights ruled (4) against police retention of the fingerprints and DNA from unconvicted people. Our government has merely mumbled about DNA while doing nothing, and ignored the fingerprint part of the ruling altogether.”

ENDS

Notes:

1. NO2ID is the national, non-partisan privacy campaign against the database state, of which the identity cards scheme was the most visible part. For more information about other schemes NO2ID is opposing, see www.no2id.net/dbstate.php
2. See: www.twitter.com/robincaron and www.paper.li/tag/vingerafdrukken
3. See: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/20/id_card_costs/
4. See: http://www.bailii.org/eu/cases/ECHR/2008/1581.html

A new chief for NO2ID

After six years as National Coordinator of NO2ID [1], the campaign’s chief executive, Phil Booth has resigned for personal reasons. The NO2ID Advisory Board met on Monday evening (January 31) and appointed Guy Herbert as his successor. This was announced to members today.

Herbert, 49, whose background and business is in publishing, has worked as a volunteer for the whole of the organisation’s formal existence and been involved in almost every aspect of the campaign. He coined the term “database state”, now widely used by the media.

Guy Herbert says:

“No one should underestimate the debt the whole country owes to Phil Booth. His incredible energy and hard work has been key in making NO2ID the fastest growing and most successful campaign group in modern British history [2], killing the Home Office’s identity scheme dead [3]. Our task now is to use that invaluable legacy and experience and take the fight to the surveillance state.

“Everybody needs privacy, but not everybody realises how much – or how much theirs is threatened. NO2ID’s strategy for the coming year will focus on government initiatives that affect millions of people and illustrate the stalker-state’s unnecessary obsession with knowing its citizens intimately: the ID culture, vetting in everyday life, databases tracking drivers and air passengers, and the continuing battle for medical privacy.

“But the first item on the menu is the most obtrusive and pervasive piece of official nosiness of all, one which the present government actually admits is unnecessary [4], but is doing anyway – the census.”

PLEASE could all journalists, newspapers and broadcast outlets REMOVE Phil Booth’s mobile phone number (07974 230839) from their contact lists.

For current or future interview, comment or background briefing from NO2ID contact:

Guy Herbert, General Secretary – general.secretary@no2id.net – 07956 544 308
Michael Parker, Press Officer – press.officer@no2id.net – 07773 376 166
James Baker, Local Groups Coordinator – local.groups@no2id.net – 07817 605 162

ENDS

Notes:

1. NO2ID is the national, non-partisan campaign against identity cards and the wider ‘database state’ of which they were the most obvious part – see http://www.no2id.net/dbstate.php. It was constituted in 2004.
2. NO2ID has grown to include local groups in more than 80 town and cities across Britain with more than 40,000 supporters. It is almost entirely volunteer-run.
3. Identity Cards Act 2006 was repealed by the Identity Documents Act 2010 which received Royal Assent just before Christmas 2010.
4. National census in 2011 could be last of its kind – BBC 10 July 2010, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10584385