June 2003 Archives

Keeping 1984 in the past - The Guardian

'In the London of 2003, security cameras have become omnipresent. The UK is thought to be one of the most surveilled countries in the world. The same is true in most urban areas: the Home Office has part-funded 684 schemes for cities and towns since 1999, involving anything from half a dozen to hundreds of cameras. Office buildings, retailers and other arms of the state have installed many thousands more. The total is likely to be hundreds of thousands.' link

Posted by SteveC at 05:19 PM Mon 23 Jun 2003 Categories: Privacy , The Guardian

5031 ID card responses counted as just 1 - Hansard

'The Earl of Northesk asked Her Majesty's Government:
How, in calculating the statistical response to the Home Office consultation on the proposal to introduce identity cards, they intend to treat the 5,029 submissions from the Stand website on the matter. [HL3123]

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: 5,031 emails have been received via the Stand website in response to the Government's consultation exercise on entitlement cards. They will be counted in the same way as other inspired samples or surveys of opinion which by their nature cannot be representative of the population as a whole. Another example is the response to an ITV Teletext survey which showed 2:1 support for a card scheme.' link

Posted by SteveC at 05:12 PM Mon 23 Jun 2003 Categories: Hansard , ID Cards

The lost ID card responses - Hansard

'Miss McIntosh: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many responses to the entitlement card consultation were received via the Stand website; and how many were (a) in favour and (b) against. [116170]

Beverley Hughes: 5,031 emails have been received via the Stand website. 4,856 expressed views against an entitlement card scheme, 44 expressed views in favour. A further 131 contained obvious false information, for example a made-up email address or were judged highly likely to be duplicates.' link

Posted by SteveC at 05:06 PM Mon 23 Jun 2003 Categories: Hansard , ID Cards

Public oppose ID card scheme - BBC

'The UK Government has finally admitted that the public are overwhelmingly opposed to the idea of a national ID card.' link

Posted by SteveC at 04:00 PM Thu 19 Jun 2003 Categories: BBC , Govt. Consultations , ID Cards

RIPA: a puzzling statute - Misc

"98. We have found RIPA to be a particularly puzzling statute and have found the points relevant to the third question difficult to decide. They are points which are of considerable significance for the future. Section 36(3) of the 1972 Act expressly provides that this court may of its own motion refer the point or points to the House of Lords if it appears to the court that it or they should be considered by the House of Lords. The House of Lords has already considered the 1985 Act ('a short but difficult statute') on a number of occasions. RIPA too is in our view a difficult statute (if somewhat longer) and it is our present view that the points raised by the questions we have tried to answer (and especially those raised by the third question) should be considered by the House of Lords." link

Posted by SteveC at 02:38 PM Tue 17 Jun 2003 Categories: Misc

Kick this legislation out - The Guardian

'Tony Blair was given a mild drubbing by the Women's Institute last week. But that is nothing to what ought to happen this week as the RIP (regulation of investigatory powers) bill enters its committee stage in the Lords. People and industry are only just waking up to the enormity of what is proposed and their lordships would do us all a favour if they used their delaying powers to throw this disgraceful bill back to the Commons for a complete rewrite.' link

Posted by SteveC at 06:03 PM Thu 12 Jun 2003 Categories: Cost to industry , The Guardian

Bosses to be prosecuted for e-mail 'snooping' - The Times

'Employers could face prosecution if they snoop on workers' emails and telephone calls without their knowledge, the Government warned today.' link

Posted by SteveC at 03:53 PM Wed 11 Jun 2003 Categories: Cybercrime , Privacy , The Times

GCHQ moves in to the doughnut - The Guardian

'A new codeword is on everyone's lips in the land of spies. Doughnut. The first of more than 4,000 staff working in Britain's most secretive establishment are preparing to move into a building given that name, in the final stage of what amounts to a cultural revolution in the world of espionage.' link

Posted by SteveC at 11:23 AM Tue 10 Jun 2003 Categories: Privacy , The Guardian

Government accused of deception over ID card statistics - out-law.com

'The UK Government claims that its plans for a national identity card have won public support. But its consultation results seem to ignore most of the responses and the Government refuses to explain why, according to human rights group Privacy International.' link

Posted by SteveC at 01:37 PM Fri 6 Jun 2003 Categories: Govt. Consultations , Human Rights , out-law.com

Business rejects EU data law plans - ComputerWeekly.com

'"We are not convinced law enforcement agencies understand how much data they'll have to deal with." Farrell said the coalition was opposed to data retention but supported data preservation where law enforcement agencies could ask a service provider to preserve data on a specified customer rather than for everyone.' link

Posted by SteveC at 01:44 PM Thu 5 Jun 2003 Categories: ComputerWeekly.com , Data retention , Govt. Consultations