Big Brother Watch

Police databases: how over 900 staff abuse their access

For the first time, Big Brother Watch has uncovered the true extent to which Police abuse their access to confidential databases. 

This report follows allegations yesterday that former Downing Street Head of Communications Andy Coulson paid the Police in order to receive privileged information.

Between 2007 and 2010:

• 243 Police officers and staff received criminal convictions for breaching the Data Protection Act (DPA).
• 98 Police officers and staff had their employment terminated for breaching the DPA.
• 904 Police officers and staff were subjected to internal disciplinary procedures for breaching the DPA.

A full breakdown of results by local police authority can be found here.

Commenting on the research findings Daniel Hamilton, Director of Big Brother Watch said:

“The allegations surrounding Andy Coulson are just the tip of the iceberg.

“It’s astonishing to think that 904 Police officers and support staff across England have faced disciplinary action for abusing their access to confidential systems. 243 have received criminal convictions for their actions, while 98 have lost their jobs.

“Our investigation shows that not only have Police employees been found to have run background records checks on friends and possible partners, but some have been convicted for passing sensitive information to criminal gangs and drug dealers.  This is at best hugely intrusive and, at worse, downright dangerous.

“Police forces must adopt a zero tolerance approach to this kind of behaviour.  Those found guilty of abusing their position should be sacked on the spot.”

Key examples

• In Merseyside alone, 208 officers and Police staff received criminal convictions for breaching the DPA since 2007.

• The areas with the largest number of officers and Police staff who had their employment terminated for DPA breaches since 2007 were: Kent (10), Merseyside (7), West Midlands (7), Northumbria (6), Derbyshire (5) and Humberside (5).

• The areas with the largest number of officers and Police staff subjected to internal disciplinary procedures for DPA breaches since 2007 were: Merseyside (208), West Midlands (83), Humberside (62), South Yorkshire (42), and Northumbria (39).

Media Contact

For broadcast interviews or further enquiries, please contact:

Daniel Hamilton
Director, Big Brother Watch
07810 785 924
020 7340 6030

Links of the day Friday 1st July

Please note these are articles and opinions we found interesting, however they do not necessarily represent the views of Big Brother Watch

Background checking in the palm of the hand

Google faces 'wire tapping' case over Street View

Facebook crashes advertising industry party

Government refuses to keep DNA of innocent people

Does Johann Hari actually meet his interviewees?

Phishers switch focus to targeted attacks, warns Cisco

WPP and an Internet Bill Of Rights - call on your MP to sign Robert Halfon MP's EDM

Big Brother Watch supporter Robert Halfon MP has tabled an Early Day Motion - a parliamentary procedure by which MPs can draw attention to a particular issue - regarding the WPP Group and their boasts of having built up a database containing information on "almost 100%" of the public.  For more information, click here.

The Early Day Motion reads as follows:

"That this House is deeply concerned that privacy is gradually being eroded by private companies using the internet to obtain personal data and selling it for commercial gain; notes that the latest problem is with WPP Group plc, the advertising firm, which claims to have built up individual profiles for half a billion internet users across the world, including allegedly almost 100 per cent. of British people; further notes that secret monitoring of internet users is already a huge issue, with data scraping and cookies monitoring people without their consent; believes an internet bill of rights is needed to guard against the growing infringement of civil liberties that are not covered by existing legislation; and further believes that the Information Commissioner lacks the powers necessary to protect personal data and has done precious little to protect our privacy in recent tests such as the Google Street View project."

While Early Day Motions carry no legislative weight, we would urge you to contact your Member of Parliament asking them to sign this motion in order to heighten awareness of this issue.

You can contact your MP directly by visiting www.writetothem.com.

Database aims to track everyone in the UK

At Big Brother Watch, we have long warned about the insidious growth of the database state; a trend which threatens privacy and opens up millions of people to the potential of their data being lost or stolen.

In the long run, we hope that our highlighting of concerns surrounding this topic will lead to more private and public sector operations adopting "privacy by design" into their interactions with members of the public so that people are better able to keep track of what information is held on them and why.

Sadly this belief in privacy is not held by the British advertising firm WPP who have issued a press statement claiming "to have built the world's largest database of individuals' internet behaviour".  This database, the firm claims, will be able to track "almost 100 per cent of the UK population".

Big Brother Watch will be keeping an eye on this database in the coming months...

You can view the whole story here.

Daniel Hamilton on the BBC's One Show discussing the new Police National Database

Is the Olympic cultural events database being kept on an unsecured Excel spreadsheet?

A report on The Register has found a job vacancy on the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG) website which seems to suggest that the organisation’s entire cultural events database is stored on a simple Excel spreadsheet.

The job description states:

“The majority of the Team and Database Administrators work will be to work with the Senior Operations Manager, and Business Manager, in management of the central cultural events database (held in excel)”

Any large-scale projects which involve computers and governmental organisations inevitably seem to end up in disaster in the United Kingdom, after well known problems with schemes such as the NHS database being a prime example.

After being questioned on the matter, LOCOG released the following statement:

“The document you're asking about is just a simple list of information relating to events, it's a tracking tool not a database. ExCel [sic] spreadsheets are a common corporate tool and we use them as and when appropriate.”

“Where data is of a more sensitive nature then we impose stronger security measures and platforms according to the risk profile. Information security is of the up most importance to LOCOG and we are confident that our data is held securely with the stringent security procedures we have in place.”

If there is any truth to this story; it is a catastrophe waiting to happen. This much data, some of it very sensitive, stored on a simple spreadsheet, could potentially be hacked or stolen leading to a massive data loss.

For the extended story, click here

The government must lift the ban on using intercept evidence

Regular visitors to the Big Brother Watch blog will be aware that BBW has long campaigned for a change in existing laws to allow intercept evidence to be used in terrorist trials.

Big Brother Watch Director Daniel Hamilton has today outlined the case for the ban to be lifted in an article for the Total Politics magazine's 'The Idea' feature:

"As long as the ban on the admissibility of intercept evidence remains in place, so do the many strange anomalies connected to it. While British courts cannot hear domestic intercept evidence, they frequently secure convictions based on overseas intercepts. Similarly, British intercepts can be used in prosecutions taking place overseas. While a conversation recorded on a hidden bug is admissible in court, a recorded phone call or intercepted email is not.

"To date, the government has opted to set aside fundamental privacy concerns in order to pursue the IMP. Such a programme, the British public has been told, will “make us safer”.

"Given that the majority of terrorist offences are committed by small groups of individuals, often operating outside the confines of mainstream society, it’s difficult to see how the IMP could possibly be successful in achieving that objective. Pinpointing terrorist activity among a database of billions of unique communications is akin to searching for a needle in a haystack. All the IMP achieves is the creation of the most invasive and intrusive database in history."

You can view the extended piece here.

Links of the day Tuesday 31st May

'Spy cameras' are used to target student protesters

Cops with cameras go on the streets in west of Glasgow

Twitter forced to hand over user details to English council

'One size fits all' EU data law would undermine rights, says Clarke

Lockheed hack highlights cyber-blame snags

Banks regularly breaching data rules

Ryan Bourne: The Bank of England's inflation forecasts are getting increasingly inaccurate

David Miliband aims a swipe at Ed just days after his brother's wedding

Sony restores PlayStation Network in full

One Year On: The Coalition and Civil Liberties

Big Brother Watch has today (11th May) released a research paper outlining the progress the Coalition Government has made on civil liberties issues during its first year in office.

The paper concludes that, while real progress has been made, many of the Coalition's promises to roll back the power of the state remain unfulfilled.

Click here to download the report

Commenting on the report, Big Brother Watch Director Daniel Hamilton said:

"The Coalition has some real achievements to speak off. 

"Ministers should be congratulated for taking steps to scrap ID cards and remove the profiles of the one million innocent people held on the national DNA database.   They should also be praised for doing away with the ContactPoint database of children’s details and reforming the criminal record check regime.

"They do, however, have more work to do. 

"Police stop and search powers remain in place, Control Orders remain virtually unreformed and there has been no opt-out from the European Arrest Warrant.  When it comes to E-Borders, the Summary Care Record and Intercept Modernisation Programme, they have continued to implement the previous government’s policies – warts and all." 

Teaching union slams "luddite" opponents of pupil fingerprinting

The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) have claimed that the much-needed controls on biometric systems and CCTV in schools are a “Luddite Solution”.

The new legislation will require the written permission of both parents, plus any other person with parental responsibility for a child. Without this, schools will be unable to use a biometric system on children.

ASCL general secretary Brian Lightman said:

"ASCL completely agrees that parents should have a say in whether their children take part in biometric systems in schools, and they should have the right to opt out if they have concerns or are opposed in principle.”

“However, if the bill goes through, the hoops that schools and colleges will need to go through to use these systems will be completely disproportional. The reality is that in the next few years, we will be using finger recognition to log onto our laptops. This is the future and it is already in one in every three secondary schools. To enact this legislation is a Luddite reaction and a huge backward step."

A spokesman for the Department for Education (DfE) said:

"We've got no problem with heads using the latest biometrics to speed up lunch queues or registration - that's their choice. The bottom line is that parents should have the right to opt their children out if they are concerned about its use. Biometrics is always a sensitive issue - the onus should be on schools to explain and persuade parents of these systems' merits. You can't assume families will just go along with whatever a head says, when it comes to using and storing their children's personal data. It's common sense that alternative systems are available for those who those that want it."

Biostore Solutions claim that in the schools which use biometrics, 99.8% of parents have no objection to it being used on their child. This seems an extremely suspicious statistic, especially considering it comes from a company with a huge conflict of interest. In fact, the statistic does not come from a survey of parents; instead it is based on the number of pupils who refused to take part in the system. Most pupils will have been subjected to a huge amount of pressure to accept the system from teachers who they are taught to respect.

Without this legislation, schools will install hugely intrusive biometric systems and CCTV cameras to monitor the movement of children without the permission of parents, who may not even know about the systems. The government is right to make these changes, and should ignore the complaints of the ASCL.

Department for Work and Pensions to introduce identity verification service

Details have emerged of a £2 million Department of Work and Pensions tender to find a company able to source biographical and other background information about online benefit claimants.

Crucially, the "chosen supplier will provide biographical data to supplement information already available to the department", indicating that such a supplier would not simply be linking up existing databases in the pursuit of so-called "joined up government".

The full piece can be found on the excellent Register website.

A Big Brother Watch co-conspiritor added: "Isn't it good to see that our freedom-loving government have thrown out those plans for keeping giant databases of information about us?"

Hat-tip: SC

What happens when the intrusive census goes wrong..?

Cats get summonsed to do jury service.

No, I'm not kidding, click the link.

That kind of farcical mix-up becomes more likely, the more questions you ask - and this year's census is the most intrusive yet. We warned you about the census before the last election. The Tories agreed that it was invasive and intrusive... But now they're implementing it, unchanged.

By Alex Deane

Big Brother Watch submission to the European Commission's consultation on personal data protection in the EU

The 1995 Data Protection Directive put forth two important ideas on personal data, namely, that individuals have rights and freedoms especially associated with personal data protection and that there should be free flow of personal data within the common market.  However, rapid technological change has opened up a whole new set of data protection challenges.

The Commission has stated a desire to address the following policy areas as a matter of urgency:

• Addressing the impact of new technologies
• Enhancing the internal market dimension of data protection (and providing for a disconnect between member states and their policies and the EU)
• Addressing globalisation and improving international data transfers
• Providing for a stronger institutional arrangement for the effective enforcement of data protection rules
• Improving the coherence of the data protection legal framework

Click here to download a copy of our submission to the consultation.

The state never makes mistakes... right?

One of the enduring (and tremendously) harmful myths of our time is that the state is somehow more efficient than the rest of society (or, worse, somehow infallible). That absurdity underpinned the fatally flawed ID Card scheme, as discussed yesterday, and with absolutely no lesson learned, it went on to - and continues to - underpin the monolithic NHS Summary Care Record.

Behind these new schemes is the idea that they never make mistakes with existing databases, ho ho! Click on the "database" button in the cloud to the right and you'll see the fallacy of that notion, and here's another little pearler spotted by a BBW reader:

Friday, January 7

THERE seemed to be a bit of confusion for one gentleman in the [Bedford] magistrates’ court today. He wasn’t sure why his driving licence had suddenly been revoked, when he hadn’t done anything wrong. It turns out his brother – who he incidentally doesn’t have contact with – has a rather similar Christian name to his, starting with the same initial.

‘Admin mistake’ the court called it. I think this man may have had another name for it.

Quite.

By Alex Deane

Hat tip: PM

Clegg's speech: a waste of time

I attended Nick Clegg's speech this morning, and discussed it on Victoria Derbyshire's show on Radio 5 Live today. Over at Public Service I have written an article which puts the argument more fully. In case you're interested, I thought I'd reproduce it here:

Perhaps against our better judgment, I and a number of other civil libertarians trudged through the rain to listen to Nick Clegg's speech at the Institute of Government today. What a waste of time it was.

One appreciates that today is the Deputy Prime Minister's birthday, but there's still no excuse for giving a speech so entirely without substance as this. Effectively, this was the governmental equivalent of the boy who cried "wolf" – he called a press conference, but had nothing to say. As I said with praise at the time, the mood music on offer when the coalition was formed was extremely encouraging – but now, fully seven months on, it is profoundly depressing for anyone who cares about freedom to find all-but exactly the same music on offer, with no substantive additions at all.

Mr Clegg spent a great deal of time talking about the expansion of Freedom of Information, which although hardly revolutionary is significant and welcome, and on libel and defamation reform, on which there was some substance. The trouble there is that that latter issue falls squarely in Ken Clarke's patch, not Clegg's, but – his desparate team must have thought – so what? The DPM desperately needed something substantive to say. And he'd obviously been denied any meat – at all – on the issues everyone was there for, i.e. our profoundly illiberal anti-terror legislation, under which hundreds of thousands of people are stopped and searched at random without a single terror-related arrest, people are kept under detention for a month before they're even charged, and individuals can be put on control orders indefinitely. All of this, he said, fell under the purview of the Home Secretary, and he wouldn't presume to say anything about it – peculiar, one might think, for the man supposedly in charge of the Freedom Bill, especially on the Control Orders front.

The case for action on this is plain, and not only because the Liberal Democrats were so clear and principled on the issue before the election. Control Orders are completely immoral. If you're a victim of this pernicious form of house arrest, not only are you denied sight of the evidence against you, you're not even told the nature of the accusation. So there's simply no way to defend yourself from it. When the Government can restrict liberty like this on a whim, it is not enough, on the one hand, to speak in head-shaking, deep-toned, pseudo-profound terms about the "grave threat" we face, and on the other offer assurances that the police and security services "know what they're doing" (just ask Jean-Charles De Menezes or Ian Tomlinson what they'd make of such assertions). At times like these, faced with an objectively less significant threat than this country faced throughout the 1970s, the kneejerk reaction on show from the last government is truly the greatest threat posed to our free society.

Such a threat is far from merely theoretical. Blame my barristerial background, perhaps, but I'm old-fashioned enough to believe in the presumption of innocence, and in trying people accused of crimes in courts, then finding them innocent or guilty. Such basic principles were gravely harmed by the last government, and once such bright line principles are breached then the freedoms of all of us are threatened.

Though he talks a good game, Clegg has hitherto done and is doing precisely nothing to reverse this illiberality. There were lofty words on offer on covert surveillance for absurd things and on our DNA database, the largest per capita in the world, with the details of more than an innocent people on it. There was even a single line about limiting the power of representatives of the state to enter private property.It was all rather familiar [for BBW followers...]. But on absolutely none of it was there any specificity. So one fears that the delays, reviews and empty speeches (co-ordinated with a suspiciously well-timed parade of supposedly impartial grandees coming out against Control Orders, and a remarkably coincidental escalation in the terror level we are told we face) are taking place as a prelude to substituting effectively the same kinds of regime on all of these issues. This is why, for example, one views Clegg's preferred formula, "Control Orders cannot survive in their current form", with such suspicion. We are very likely, I fear, to see a cosmetic change offered as a sop to the Liberal Democrats, with no real genuine action at all.

I do not allege that Clegg is actually happy with this. Perhaps he is making all manner of uncomfortable compromises. But is he actually right to do so? Of course the Lib Dems are enjoying the trappings of power, but Mr Clegg has to ask himself – is he truly the Deputy Prime Minister, or not? If he is, then this kind of delay by others on his fundamental manifesto pledges, leading to his excuse-riddled inaction, is simply inexcusable. If he's not… then what's he doing in the Coalition?

By Alex Deane

Scottish schools storing biometric data without offering opt-out

Late last year, we reported on the case of an East Midlands school which had installed a costly and invasive facial recognition system in order to log their pupils in and out of lessons.

Up in the North Eastern corner of Scotland, it appears as if schools in Angus have gone one step further. According to reports in the Tayside and Fife Courier, parents are up in arms following reports that schools in the Borough have collected biometric data from their children without informing parents of their right to opt-out of the service.

Councillor Peter Nield, the Chairman of the council's education committee has gone on record as stating there had been "no opt-outs" by any parents across the borough, a claim directly contradicted by a pupil's father Graham Galloway whose children have effectively had their biometric data 'stolen' despite his objections.

Click here to read the full story.

Another day, another data loss

Big Brother Watch has grown used to receiving reports of local councils misplacing, losing and accidentally leaking confidential information about their local residents.  Indeed, earlier this month, we reported on the worrying case of a Hampshire council who divulged confidential information about the mental health of a resident. 

A supporter has written in alerting us to the loss of an unencrypted memory stick containing the personal details of 40 children in care in the city of Stoke-on-Trent - a council rated one of Britain's worst performing local authorities. 

Commenting on the case, the Information Commissioner's Office said: 

"When handling sensitive personal information, particularly information relating to the care of vulnerable children, it is important that authorities ensure the necessary measures are in place to protect this information.

"This incident occurred before April 6 so the powers now available to the Information Commissioner to issue penalties of up to £500,000 for serious breaches of the Data Protection Act, could not be considered."

In this case, Stoke City Council appears to have effectively gotten away with it.

How long, for example. until a council divulges the identities of women on the run from abusive relationships?  Is it out of the question that information on the identities of children on the 'at risk' register might become public property as a result of a lack of adherence to data protection laws?  Could we see a repeat of central government's loss of personal bank account details on a local level?

Not for the first time, however, this type of data loss only serves to heighten the need for increased staff training to improve the awareness of the importance of maintaining standards of data security at Britain's local councils.

By Daniel Hamilton.

My speech to the Libertarian Alliance: Anonymity is not a Crime

I gave this speech this weekend and thought that readers might be interested. It's a bit long and I look like the left side of my face is slowly being cooked by the lighting, but it's not a bad speech I think.

Topics covered:

* Intercept Modernisation Programme

* Stop and Search

* ID Cards

* Control Orders

* NICE databases

Topic I would have covered if I had time, and will be addressing again very soon indeed: European Arrest Warrant

By Alex Deane

Training and data security

The Public Service Journal carries news today of Portsmouth City Council's failure to ensure adequite data security for information it holds about local residents.  In this particular case, it appears that confidential information regarding the mental health of an individual that ought to have been redacted was released to another member of the public in error.

According to the Information Commissioner's office - which has this week effectively cleared Google for their harvesting of confidential data from thousands of private home-owners - the "breach of the Data Protection Act was entirely avoidable, and would not have happened if the individuals dealing with the request had been given proper training and the necessary levels of support".

Details of the case aside, ICO raises an interesting point; chiefly, that awareness among employees of both public and private sector organisations of the importance of handling personal data sensitively is woefully low.  In light of this case and that of Healthcare Locums, the ICO must take a more proactive role in helping to raise awareness of the importance of professional training to avoid harmful mishaps such as this occuring.

By Daniel Hamilton

A little piece of you will forever be in Rotterdam

Big Brother Watch was recently alerted to the case of an East Midlands school which had deployed automatic facial recognition software as a means by which to sign their pupils in and out of school.

Rotterdam City Council, it appears, have gone one step further in announcing the roll-out of facial recognition scanners on their public transport network as a means by which to prevent those with travels bans from boarding trams.

According to DutchNews.nl:

"The scanners will record the biometric features of passengers as they enter the tram. If a passenger with a public transport ban is spotted, an alarm will sound in the driver's cabin and the passenger will be removed.. At the moment, drivers are issued with photos of banned passengers and have to recognise them from these"

So there, you are warned: if you board the tram while in Amsterdam, the Dutch authorities will forever hold both your biometric data and details as to where you boarded and disembarked the tube.

Ah well, you needn't worry; at least the scheme isn't being introduced in Amsterdam, so they'll never find out about that trip you're planning to De Wallen...

By Daniel Hamilton

A call to arms

Tomorrow afternoon Members of Parliament will, for the first time, have the opportunity to fully debate the issue of privacy and the internet - an astonishing thought given that more than 60% of the public use the internet every day.  

The debate was secured following a successful application by Robert Halfon MP to the Backbench Business committee and will take place in Westminster Hall from 2:30pm to 5:30pm. 

The debate will be wide-ranging in tone, examining issues such as the implicatons for privacy of the Google Street View service, the targeting of online advertising to internet users based on the websites they have visited in the past and data security concerns surrounding Facebook. 

It is crucial, particularly in light of the discovery that Google has recently harvested thousands of personal e-mail addresses and other sensitive personal information from domestic WiFi connections, that as many Members of Parliament as possible attend and contribute to the debate.

Please do get in touch with your MP and them to attend.  If you don't have their contact details to hand, visit http://www.theyworkforyou.com.

By Daniel Hamilton

The 'Big Brother' snooping database is back

During the early days of the coalition Big Brother Watch was encouraged by the numerous Home Office announcements declaring "reviews" of some of the previous government's more draconian policies were underway.

One such policy was that of the 'big brother' database of all communications in the UK, designed to allow "police, security services and other public bodies [to be able to] find out which websites a person had visited, and when, where and to whom a text or call was made".

Sadly, the Daily Mail today reports that Home Office ministers have been "persuaded of the case to give the police and security officials enhanced rights to access the public’s communications", a move which will allow officials to snoop on which websites you visit and any online 'phone calls you may make.

While it is encouraging that the coalition appears to have ruled out holding the data collected on one central database, this scheme still represents a significant intrusion on the privacy of the British people which must be strongly resisted.

Click here to read the full story.

If you would like to raise your objections to the scheme, please do get in touch with your local MP. Their details can be found at http://www.theyworkforyou.com.

By Daniel Hamilton.

Book launch this evening: ‘Fight Terror, Defend Freedom’ by Dominic Raab MP

This evening will see the launch of civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch’s new publication, ‘Fight Terror, Defend Freedom’ by Dominic Raab MP.
 
The launch of the book will take place between 5:00pm and 6:00pm today in the Thatcher Room in Portcullis House, Houses of Parliament.  
 
Mr Raab, who was an international lawyer prior to his election to Parliament, will introduce his publication, followed by a panel discussion including former Shadow Home Secretary David Davis MP, Centre for Technology Policy Research Jerry Fishenden and Big Brother Watch Director Alex Deane.   
 
Commenting on the launch of the publication Raab said:

“Today’s publication of the National Security Strategy, highlights the flaws in the last government’s approach to counter-terrorism. Too much time, money and effort was wasted on ‘sound byte’ security. Too many of Labour’s measures, like ID cards and prolonged detention without charge, were unnecessary or irrelevant to our security. 

 “The government has a golden opportunity to break with this flawed approach. We should be defending our freedoms, like free speech and the presumption of innocence. At the same time, the justice system is an underused weapon in the fight against terrorism. We should be strengthening our capacity to prosecute terrorists – not least by lifting the ban on using intercept as evidence.” 

Alex Deane, Director of Big Brother Watch said: 

“The case for action is now irresistible.  Dominic Raab’s publication shows the injustices being done every day in this country.  Stop and search and control orders are being reviewed – why?  Why review something when you know it’s wrong?“ 

Click here to download a copy of the booklet.

Guest post: My ill-fated evening in Southampton - Britain’s big brother capital

Recently I had the misfortune of being invited for a night out in Southampton.

This visit was a real eye-opener to me and taught me how much the ‘Big Brother’ society is starting to negatively impact on our day to day lives. I also had a lesson in how little power we have to challenge the people who are doing this.

Let’s start with the basics: it is not possible to have a night out in Southampton without carrying some form of identification.

The types that the bars and clubs accept are: a 'Prove it' card (which at 30 I am too old to have), a driving licence (I don’t drive) or a passport (which in line with Home Office guidelines I use for immigration purposes only!). Without one of these documents, snarling bouncers will refuse you entry to almost every club or bar, even if you the last time you got IDed John Major was still Prime Minister!

Privacy and 192.com

Big Brother Watch has long been concerned about the rapid growth of the database state in the United Kingdom - a craze which threatens data security and invades privacy. 

The latest such manifestation of this phenomenon is the website 192.com. 

While the number '192' conjures up images of the telephone number one used to call in order to find out the mislaid telephone numbers of their friends, 192.com is a whole different kettle of fish.

The website prides itself on its ability to "tell you more about people, businesses & places in the UK than any other directory".  Indeed, aside from finding out telephone numbers, one can also (for a fee) access the individual credit risk reports of company directors, read court judgements and trawl the electoral roll to find people's home addresses.

Do take the time to look at the website and see if your personal information is being made publicly available on this website. 

Rather helpfully, 192.com has produced a guide as to how to have your details removed from the database.  Click here to view it.

By Daniel Hamilton.

Who cares about medical privacy

It is a commonplace among proponents of a "no secrets, nowhere to hide" society that young people, brought up in the internet age are happy to live in public on Facebook and mobile phone, and don't value their privacy. The hint is that doing so is somehow for fuddy-duddies.

But a study just published by the Royal Academy of Engineering suggests that so called Digital Natives actually have a more subtle understanding of what privacy means than those pooh-poohing it.

‘Privacy and Prejudice’ (full report available here)  specifically studied the views of teenagers of the computerization and centralization of medical records – Electronic Patient Records (EPR).  It is very clear:

Growing up in an era of the Big Brother television series and the expansion of social networking sites such as Facebook does not mean that young people do not care about privacy or what happens to their personal information. Privacy is indeed extremely important to young people. [...]

Young people have significant concerns regarding EPRs. These arise due to the perceived inherent weaknesses of an EPR system, including both the robustness (or not) of the technology and the potential errors that will be made by the users. Young people noticed that this could lead to incorrect data within a patient’s record, data loss (massive or individual) or the data reaching the ‘wrong hands’. The consequences were deemed to be very serious and include the improper treatment of patients, fundamental breaches in privacy, the misuse and inappropriate exploitation of the data, prejudice and discrimination.

They distinguish naturally between such systems, where the information included and the uses it is put to are not chosen by the subject but fundamentally affecting his or her life, and the social network, seen as a matter of self-projection and presentation. It’s the nature of the relationship that is important, who is in charge.

On this evidence teenagers also have a much clearer understanding of the meaning of privacy than government policy makers, who have just decided that the NHS Summary Care Records system can continue to be built by the sort of inertia selling that would be illegal for a commercial organisation. In future they will put an opt-out form in the envelope. Big deal. You will still be assumed irrevocably to have consented, regardless of your understanding of what you are being asked, if you fail to use it - on behalf of yourself and your children.

There are no plans to write to under-18s individually. Adults know better what’s good for them, apparently.

By Guy Herbert, NO2ID

"Scraping" – or, Beware of What You Put on the Web (part two)

Regular visitors to this blog will have seen Dominique Lazanski's warning earlier this week about the risks of businesses and employers "scraping" personal information you have uploaded to the internet.

With this in mind, Big Brother Watch has been alerted to the case of the 'scraping' of PatientLikeMe.com - a discussion forum for people with emotional disorders, "ranging from bipolar disease to a desire to cut themselves". In the early hours of the morning on 7th May, website administrators observed "suspicious" activity on website, with copies of each of the messages on the website being copied in their entirety by a media-research firm representing the pharmaceutical industry.

Information about the opinions of the website's users where then forwarded to drug companies. While many users of the website posted their messages under pseudonyms, one user complained that information contained on his profile revealed his correct e-mail and blog addresses - something which could allow drug companies to identify him directly.

Despite the sensitive nature of its content - and their condemnation of companies who engage in "scraping" -  PatientsLikeMe.com, the website from which the data as to views of patients was obtained, freely admits to selling anonymized information about the profile of its users to commercial clients for market research purposes.

Scraping, the Wall Street Journal confirms, is big business:

"The emerging business of web scraping provides some of the raw material for a rapidly expanding data economy. Marketers spent $7.8 billion on online and offline data in 2009, according to the New York management consulting firm Winterberry Group LLC. Spending on data from online sources is set to more than double, to $840 million in 2012 from $410 million in 2009.

"Scraping services range from dirt cheap to custom-built. Some outfits, such as 80Legs.com in Texas, will scrape a million Web pages for $101. One Utah company, screen-scraper.com, offers do-it-yourself scraping software for free. The top listening services can charge hundreds of thousands of dollars to monitor and analyze Web discussions.

"Nielsen BuzzMetrics, quickly became a leader in the field of social-media monitoring. It collects data from 130 million blogs, 8,000 message boards, Twitter and social networks. It sells services such as "ThreatTracker," which alerts a company if its brand is being discussed in a negative light"

In light of this case, Dominique's warning has become all the more prescient:

"The best advice for all of this is to be careful of what you put online. Only individuals are best placed to take control of what they share and when they share it. And you never know who is watching"

By Daniel Hamilton

An end to 'sexting'

News has reached Big Brother Watch that the US Patent and Trademark Office has approved a patent submitted on behalf of Apple to end the practice of "sexting".

With the innocuous working title of the 'Text-based communication control for personal communication device', Apple's new application is set to "prevent users from sending or receiving “objectionable” text messages". The technology, which will be hosted on Apple's text message servers will effectively block any text messages containing sexual language or explitives from being delivered.

No mention has yet been made of whether the text messages which do not 'pass muster' will be stored by the company with a note as to their original sender.

Click here to read the full story at TechCrunch.

Hat-tip: GF

By Daniel Hamilton

Facebook's Privacy Problem

As someone studying Marketing, Advertising & PR at university with a special interest in Social Media I am certainly no stranger to the beast that is Facebook. Despite the heavy criticism it has received from its users I have always defended it, having the view that what you put on the internet, especially on a social website, is your responsibility.

For example when people complained that adverts on Facebook 'knew too much' I took the view (a biased marketer's one admittedly) that data intelligent adverts were a good thing. Why wouldn't you want specifically targeted adverts as oppose to the usual dating, money making and medical adverts people are often inundated with?

Increasingly though I have taken a more and more negative view to the way Facebook deals with its users and data privacy. When the founder of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg responded to data privacy concerns by stating that "the age of privacy is over" I was angered. It is one thing to inform users that they are responsible for the information they put on the internet, but another to completely disregard the basic human right to privacy that everybody deserves.

A review of the current playing field for civil liberties

I have written an extended piece for the website Critical Reaction reviewing the various outstanding civil liberties issues under the Coalition. Part 1 is here - Part 2 is here.

By Alex Deane

Texas school children tracked by microchips

Fresh from reports in the UK that several East Midlands schools have installed 4D facial recognition scanners in order to sign their pupils in and out of lessons, two school districts in Texas have gone one step further and integrated radio frequency identification devices into their pupils’ badges.

The devices, which are only slightly thicker than an ordinary plastic identity card have already been issued to 13,500 of the 36,000 pupils living in the Spring School District based around Santa Fe. Described as "fantastic" by education administators, the devices allow teachers to remotely track the movements of their pupils as they wander around the school campus. 

Dotty Griffin of the American Civil Liberties Union, who have unsuccessfully fought to have the devices removed from schools in California, has been leading the charge against the microchips.  Her arguments against the use of this type of technology in schools are identical to those levelled against 4D facial recognition scanners:

"There's real questions about the security risks involved with these gadgets. Readers can skim information. To the best of my knowledge, these things are not foolproof. We constantly see cases where people are skimming, hacking and stealing identities from sophisticated systems”.

Click here to read the full story.

Big Brother Watch has yet to receive reports of such devices being installed in British schools but would greatly appreciate being notified if this technology makes its way over the pond...

By Daniel Hamilton

NHS "big brother" database scaled back

Big Brother Watch has been a consistent opponent of the government's attempts to introduce what a major national newspaper has termed a "big brother database" storing the medical records of every patient in the United Kingdom. Aside from being hugely costly to implement, such a system would be both intrusive and open to abuse at the hands of unscrupulous individuals.

As a BBW research paper published in April showed, private patient records are already widely accessible by more than 100,000 non-medical personnel, often without appropriate background checks. 

The announcement today that the system is going to be scaled back to include "only patients' most basic information" such as allergies and possible adverse reactions to drugs should therefore be welcomed - but only partially.

While the Department of Health have confirmed that those being added to the database in the coming months will receive an 'opt out' form exempting them from the scheme, the records of more than two million people have already been uploaded - in many cases without a full explanation having been offered to them as how to opt-out of the service.

The Department for Health and National Health Service bodies must do all they can to right this wrong. Members of the public have an absolute right to confidentiality when it comes to their personal medical records.

By Daniel Hamilton

Damian Green's speech at Big Brother Watch event, Conservative Party Conference 2010

Big Brother Watch was proud to host Damian Green's speech on the fringe at the Conservative Party's Conference in Birmingham this week. Here's the text.

"British freedoms for British People"

Thank you for that introduction. It painted a bleak picture of the authoritarian state built up under thirteen years of Labour rule.

What struck me after my own arrest, and my successful campaign to have my DNA taken off the database after I was cleared, was the anger in the letters that came in from those in a similar position. Former army officers, magistrates, grandmothers in small towns who had never dreamed of offending, were all united in their distrust of the police and the authorities more generally. These are the people we have always thought of as the backbone of respectable society. Alienating them from the law enforcement authorities would be a disaster.  This is one of the quiet ways that New Labour lost Middle Britain.

And even Labour’s new leader seems to agree. Ed Miliband claimed in his Conference speech last week that he wants to ‘reclaim’ liberty for the Labour Party. He has admitted that:

“I've said throughout this campaign that I believe New Labour was at times too casual about the liberty of individuals.[..] We made mistakes over ID cards and 42-day detention and how we handled stop and search powers. ”

Words are cheap. Will we see action from Ed Miliband?

4D facial recognition systems in Northamptonshire schools

At Big Brother Watch we were concerned to learn this week of a Northamptonshire school's decision to introduce a new facial-recognition system to track pupils' movements.

According to reports in the London Metro:

"About 200 sixth formers are having their faces scanned when they ‘clock in and out’ at Sir Christopher Hatton School, in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, along with pupils in schools in Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire.  The system can deliver messages to pupils when they sign in, using a four-digit pin, and notes whether they’re late"

Speaking to the Metro Kelli Foster, the school's Head of Sixth Form is right to describe the technology as "incredible"; for indeed it is incredible that schools should feel the need to turn to hold information as to the distance between the eyes and noses of their pupils in order to distinguish between them.  Furthermore, Ms Foster explains that prior to the installation of the technology "each pupil had to sign in and out of the reception by filling in a form - but now it takes under ten seconds".  Without wishing to take an antidelivian attitude to new technology, we at BBW have seen few sign-in forms which take as long as ten seconds to fill in...

With a costly £9,000 price tag (equivalent to £45 per pupil to install), such systems have limited benefits yet are wide open to abuse – from the risk of data theft to the misuse of images by unscrupulous individuals.

Rather than spend money on gimmicks like this, teachers and schools should focus on educating their pupils - and getting to know who they are.

By Daniel Hamilton

Facebook: have they got your number?

The Guardian carries a concerning story regarding the latest version of Facebook’s popular iPhone application.

As a result of the application’s new “contact sync” feature, those using the service face having both their personal phone number and those of their contacts uploaded to the internet.  When uploaded, the phone numbers will be automatically cross-checked with those of other members before allocating them to your online ‘phonebook.

Charles Arthur makes the following observation:

“The implications are huge, and extremely worrying. All it takes is for someone's Facebook account to be hacked (perhaps via their phone being stolen) and lots of personal details are revealed. Or, as [in one case], you get your phonebook record of "Steve Car" (a garage mechanic) somehow linked to someone called "Steve Carlton" - who you don’t know”

Facebook have responded to early criticism of the "contact sync" feature and have now introduced a warning to all those opting to use the feature that their details will be uploaded "subject to Faceook's privacy policy". 

The only way, however, to ensure your telephone number is not shared in this way appears to remove this information from your Facebook profile.

Click here for the full story.

By Daniel Hamilton

The Child Support Agency + surveillance = credit card debt

With levels of both government and personal debt at dangerous levels, one would have thought that the Child Support Agency – a body which prides itself on bringing “financial stability” to the homes of children whose parents live apart – would do all it could to encourage parents to behave in a fiscally responsible manner.

This emphasis on fiscal responsibility does not, however, extend as the sleepy south-coast town of Poole.

Following a reassessment of the level of child support payments he must make, 49 year old father Stephen Bailey has been ordered to make an additional contribution of £300 towards his daughter’s upkeep.

While willing to make the additional payment at the earliest opportunity, Bailey lacked the sufficient funds in his current account to do so.

“No problem”, a representative of the CSA informed him, “you have £617 left on your credit card.  Pay up!".

Bailey later discovered that the CSA has an established policy of using credit referencing agencies in order to delve into the financial matters of absent parents.

Nobody would argue that steps must be taken to ensure delinquent parents must pay their fair share for their children’s upbringing. What is, however, profoundly wrong is for the CSA to abuse their privileged access to personal financial data in order to bully individuals into racking up irresponsible credit card debts.

The CSA, of course, has form in this area having been criticised by a thirteen year old girl late last year for bankrupting her far-from-absent father.  Read Mr Bailey’s full story on the Bournemouth Daily Echo website.

By Daniel Hamilton

Three good articles to read today

Alice Thomson writes in The Times (and therefore behind a disgusting paywall) that "there's pain ahead. But freeing people from petty rules would be popular - and cheap." She illustrates it with a good bit of health and safety absurdity - a trainful of people being held up for hours rather than being allowed off to shift a cow from the tracks. She concludes by discussing yesterday's superb Civitas release, "Licensed to Hug" - which points out that if we carry on the way we're going, 'ere long we'll all be suspected paedophiles, required perpetually to prove our innocence.

So if you have forked out their filthy fee or if you happen to see a hard copy of The Times, have a read.

Philip Johnston has a similarly excellent article in today's Daily Telegraph, which you can read online, also discussing the Civitas paper. He writes:

"It should go without saying that checks must be made on people seeking to work with children or old people or anyone applying for jobs that require good character. If you were looking to employ someone to look after your children or an ageing parent, you would want to be sure that the individual could be trusted. To that end, most of us would – or used to – rely upon references and word-of-mouth recommendations. These were not foolproof but at least you could talk to someone who knew the individual personally and then make a judgment about their suitability.

Once this function is taken over by the state with its Vetting and Barring Scheme, the temptation is to rely upon a clean bill of health from the ISA. Yet this is not infallible. A potential employee turning up with their clearance certificate is not guaranteed to be safe and reliable: all the bit of paper tells you is whether they have had a conviction in the past, logged by another recently created body, the Criminal Records Bureau. It cannot predict what they might do in future.

More insidiously, as the Civitas study Licensed to Hug observes, we are developing a unhealthy culture of suspicion that discourages adults from stepping in to help children in trouble for fear of being considered a potential molester and reported to the police. Increasingly we live in a society where adults distrust each other and children are taught to regard everyone with suspicion, apart from their immediate family members (who are often the people who cause them greatest harm). The vetting scheme further undermines the concept that the best protection for children is the vigilance of other adults. Moreover, a Big Society based on a culture of mutual suspicion is doomed from the outset.

Initially, the scheme was set to cover 11 million people – not just those who work professionally with children, like teachers, but parents who volunteer their time to coach children in sports, or run Scout groups or adventure outings. After an outcry last year, the Labour government modified the requirements so that people arranging among themselves to drive children to a football match or a dance class on an occasional basis would not first have to obtain clearance. Yet this still left nine million people facing checks, many of them volunteers who resented being told they had to register with the ISA (on pain of a £5,000 fine) before continuing to offer a service they had been providing for years.

How can it be good for children if these people, with their experience and skills, give up volunteering?"

Great stuff.

Finally, we and our cheeky biking mates are in today's Evening Standard, which has taken our photo from yesterday and written it up.

* Philip is speaking on a Big Brother Watch panel in the Freedom Zone at Conservative Party Conference, at 10.15 on Monday 4 October - it's free and you don't need to have a security pass to come!

By Alex Deane

Why our Broken Records report matters (mk II)

This is the second time this week that we've had to point out the critical flaws in the security around medical records, which in turn demonstrates why our report Broken Records (which received a typically frosty response from the NHS) was an important contriubtion to the debate on the issue.

From Computerworld UK:

An NHS data quality manager has pleaded guilty to illegally going through patients’ medical records. Dale Trever, 22, allegedly looked at records on 431 occasions. All the records were of female patients.

Furthermore, Trever snooped on records relating to family, friends and colleagues on 336 of these occasions.

Trever accessed the records between October 2008 and June 2009, while working at the Hull Primary Care Trust, sometimes at weekends as well.

At Hull Crown Court, Trever pleaded guilty to seven counts of breaching the Computer Misuse Act 1990 by accessing patients’ medical records without authority.

If we can't trust that hospitals and surgeries will keep our medical records confidential, the whole health system fails. This is exactly why the Summary Care Record is being opposed from various quarters and why many people in Britain feel very upset about its clandestine introduction.

But will the Coalition listen?

By Dylan Sharpe

Plymouth school's fingerprinting fun

No, not a pre-school art class story; rather Estover Community College (soon to be Tor Bridge High) have decided that in addition to the new buildings, equipment and books, some of the £39 million spent on a new refurbishment should be ploughed into sticking all of their children on a biometric database.

As the Plymouth Herald explains:

The school has become one of the few secondaries in the country to install a thumbprint scanner system which pupils can use for registration and for buying food in the new restaurant. Executive principal Graham Browne said: "It is a school of the future. There is so much technology in the new buildings.

"The fact we have a thumbprint scanner system is absolutely fantastic and shows what an amazing school this has become."

Mr Brown said the main reasons for installing it were for "speed and convenience". "It means that registration is no longer a time-consuming distraction at the start of a lesson."

It's been a while since I was at school, but I don't recall thinking that registration was the most time-consuming of daily routines. Similarly, Mr Browne may wish to consult one of the 'few secondaries' with experience of thumbprint scanners and whether they were speedy, convenient or a frequent pain, malfunctioning and expensive waste of time.

But more importantly, we are getting tired of journalists swallowing the "it's only a code, not the fingerprint so it isn't dodgy" line which teachers parrot from scanner salesmen. Put simply, if you know the code, you can change it back to a fingerprint.

This is biometric data collection and worse it is from young people who can't properly object and being done ostensibly for 'their own good.' The Government needs to address this continued practice as a matter of urgency.

By Dylan Sharpe

CompareThePrivacyViolations.com

Have you used insurance price comparison sites comparethemarket.com (you know...with the meerkat) and confused.com? If so, you'd better check out the recent investigation conducted by PC Pro.

According to their research, you can access the full quote history of an account holder armed only with their name, date of birth and email address - information that can usually be gleaned from social networking sites (or obtained in casual conversation).

Confused.com seemed to be only a little better - you need to also have the postcode to reset a password there! Oh, and no email is sent to the account holder confirming the password change.

Clearly, given the nature of their business, both of these sites have published privacy and security statements. Just goes to show that you can't rely on fine words when it comes to your digital privacy.

Just for the record, I never supply my actual date of birth, postcode, etcetera unless it is legally required (e.g. in applying for car insurance...unfortunately). I've seen date of birth used as a security question in all sorts of inappropriate places. Where possible, treat it like a password - i.e. make one up.

By Andrew Tait