Data Bill 'will wipe out privacy at a stroke'
Fears that use of personal notes may see widespread release of sensitive records
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Sweeping new laws to allow ministers to release the private details of millions of people to a string of public bodies or private firms have been condemned as being "open sesame to a vast increase in government power".
Opposition MPs joined human rights campaigners in attacking the new powers, warning that they could lead to the widespread release of medical records and other sensitive data.
As MPs opened debate on the Coroners and Justice Bill, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats branded the plans an unacceptable extension of the state, while the all-party Commons Justice Committee called for greater safeguards to protect the public against the sharing of information.
Genewatch, a genetic technology pressure group, warned that proposed data-sharing powers could ultimately open the door to the creation of a national DNA database linked to medical records. It said the Bill could allow DNA samples taken for medical reasons to be released alongside people's medical records. Dr Helen Wallace, the group's director, said it would "wipe out the personal privacy of everyone in Britain at a single stroke".
Under the proposals, ministers will be able to draw up new information-sharing orders that would allow them to release private data – such as tax returns, personal details or medical records – to any public or private body.
Orders would have to be vetted by the Information Commissioner, the official freedom of information watchdog, and approved by Parliament.
Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, insisted yesterday that sharing data between government departments would reduce the burdens on taxpayers and businesses.
But Dominic Grieve, the shadow Justice Secretary, said the plans would "drive a coach and horses through the traditional relationship between the state and individuals" to serve a "nebulous case of public good". He warned that the Bill would allow ministers to share medical records with organisations that had no link to people's health.
Mr Grieve said that clauses "tucked away" at the back of the Bill would give ministers "carte blanche to expand data sharing between officials across Whitehall, with local authorities and even with companies in the private sector". He added: "This should be done with great caution and should not be open sesame to a vast increase in government power."
David Howarth, the Liberal Democrat justice spokesman, said the data-sharing proposals were "outrageous". He said: "These provisions will allow all the restriction on data sharing in the ID Cards Act to be overridden and drive a coach and horses through all other restrictions on medical and DNA records. These plans are not confined to government departments and other public authorities. They would allow unlimited data sharing between private sector organisations and government and the private sector, whether in this country or abroad."
Ministers insist that tough safeguards would prevent the misuse of data. The Information Commissioner would have to investigate any proposed data sharing, which must then be approved by MPs and peers. But members of the Justice Committee called on ministers to increase the safeguards in the Bill.
Mr Straw said that data sharing powers could help relieve the burden on bereaved families who were forced to notify a string of public bodies when a relative died. He said: "Responsible data sharing between the relevant agencies would reduce the number of people who need to be notified of a death, thereby helping to relieve distress."
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IDABC stands for Interoperable Delivery of European eGovernment Services to public Administrations, Business and Citizens. We are told that IDABC : takes advantage of the opportunities offered by information and communication technologies:-to encourage and support the delivery of cross-border public sector services to citizens and enterprises in Europe.
Namely, your information will be shared between all 27 countries of the EU. I'm glad that my surname is nor Smith or Jones.
Apart from anything else, have they not grasped the fact that this - along with the Iraq war and now a certain excess of laissez-fair over the City - has been one of the biggest factors contributing to their loss of support from lifelong Labour voters?
"It also means that personal information about you (including official records, photographs, letters, diaries and medical records), should be kept securely and not shared without your permission, except in certain circumstances."
It would appear they are about to overturn this.
My files hold three unreasonable and illogical decisions made by that office, all protecting the Scottish Government and my Local Authority from providing information to which I'm clearly legally entitled. That information may well embarrass two Scottish Cabinet Ministers, two other MSPs and the Government itself
Details and docs available from Professor Dixie Dean, 01309-674-582/07746-283-263
The only arguement made is that it will avoid people having to report changes in personal information, such as a death of a relative, more than once. This would be best achieved by a application specifically designed to allow an individual to report a change of situation to personally selected sites. This could have a commercial extention, so that I could report a change of address to both the Inland Revenue and Tesco Club Card at the same time.
I understand that in some of the government databases special provision is made for 'celebrities', which includes government ministers. This demonstrates that ministers have noconfidence in the security of the information held.
John
http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf
http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf
What intrigues me is the fact that the Thatcher-Blair-Brown administrations have all espoused neoliberal globalisation which, allegedly, preaches the benefits of the small state.
Yet, in fact we now have the most bloated, all-embracing, state poking it's incompetent nose into every nook and cranny of people's lives, and doing so solely in the corporate interest.
Let's face it, isn't being done in the interests of the likes of 'Baby P' - how exactly would the gargantuan ContactPoint database have saved him?
No doubt Hitler in 1937 seeking to expand his NIR and Aryan Registers used much the same talk as above, we see from example just how the worlds first national identity database was put to use.
The Soviets also found their national identity databases a hoot too, when punishing someone, it was a small matter to also have that persons family rounded up and placed in the same camp as the offender. Using their databases, they punished whole towns...
The Nazi's and Soviets also exhibited how corrupt they were, how these things could be abused, how for instance a SS Officers wife desiring a property could use this system to have the owner of that property "untermensch" and sent off to a death camp, for decades the Russians suffered enormous abuses at the hands of the Soviet "system".
But you need also to know who is behind the British push for such databases...
Firstly I would suspect that some of the decision makers have been promised fat inducements for pushing this through, this is malfeasance and corruption at its finest.
Secondly, unbeknown to many, the primary candidates for these contracts in ID cards/NIR are not British companies but pseudo companies acting as fronts for US Military Intelligence and similarly Israeli Military Intelligence too.
If the government were to do this "in-house" e.g. not private and contracted out, there would be little interest but this promises to be a cash cow for the right people, Halliburton and Carlyle overcharge the taxpayer 900m a year for its work at DML Ltd and no-one raises an eyebrow but ask yourselves this... Why are foreign militaries so interested in getting in on the private details of British citizens?
Is it because they using their coercion and bribery know that British politicians will roll over rather than stop an unlimited cash cow in their favour..? Blair quashed any inquiry into the bilking at DML (that is close to a billion a year)
Or is there a more sinister agenda at foot...?
Already the Israeli's in guise of semi-legitimate companies guard the US Nuclear arsenal and even our Queen, just what the heck is going on here? Are we being taken over?
ID cards, database sharing, hundreds of ineffective new laws amount to the beginning of a police state where every movement of an individual will be scrutinised by non-descript worthless government peons, that will decide if our actions pose a threat to the establishment.
All totalitarian governments try to calm our concerns of invasion of privacy, by saying they are for the public good, "what do you have to fear, if you have nothing to hide".
The sooner this oppressive government is voted out, and the hideous Ms. Smith, who is doing her utmost to destroy all of the civil liberties we have left, is ousted before she can do any more harm.
In the mid 90's Britain was perceived as fair country, the epitome of a democracy. Under Blair we became a disgrace, lying about WMD, participating in an illegal war, eroding civil liberties to create a Big Brother state, the largest DNA database in the World (including a large proportion of children and innocent citizens). Now the same government that could not even safeguard less critical data, want to diseminate more personal information to third parties.
All of these actions are disgraceful, but when you consider how inept this government have been at solving any of the other problems (Financial crisis, housing crisis, asinking Pound, unemployment etc.), you wonder where their priorities lie.
If these Ministers think there will be "tough safe guards" then they are mistaken. Humans make errors not computers. Face it microchip under the skin will be next.
"I am opposed to compulsory ID cards primarily on the grounds that should, at some point in the future, a non-benign government come into power, this - together with the developing surveillance camera and database infrastructure, which I am also opposed to, for the same reason - would provide the state with significant powers to oppress the population. I believe that this constitutes a greater threat to my safety than terrorism. Please can you tell me how you intend to ensure that this cannot happen?"
So far I have received two standard letters not answering my question in reply, and am still awaiting a response to my third repetition of the question requesting that they actually read the question and answer it.
Another feeble pathetic excuse for abusing confidential personal information coming from a government that has more security breaches than a teabag has holes!
This government is utterly obsessed with control and the destruction of privacy of each and every one of us. We are already being watched, controlled and scrutinized from the minute we leave our homes until we return to them, likely very soon we will be watched within them as well.
It is high time all of this nonesense was stopped and people given back thier right to privacy without being monitored from morning til night! The sort of surviellance imposed on us now is nothing short of intimidation. Our society is becoming like one huge prison camp and our rights diminished on a daily basis.Blair introduced 30,000 new laws in ten years and most of them designed to control us. The cameras were supposed to prevent crime when all the police do is watch it being commited, whilst seemingly doing as little as possible to prevent it. I most certainly would not want other government agencies looking at medical records or any other records for that matter, only professionals should have access to such information. I think this is utterly outrageous. Who gave consent for our children to be on a database? Likely when the government loose this, peadophile networks will be paying a premium for copies!
So let's understand this: governments and police are planning to implement increasingly accurate surveillance technologies that are unnoticeable, cheap, pervasive, ubiquitous, and searchable in real time.
you have a duty now, as a citizen, to question this stealthy rush towards permanent individual surveillance. A Government already obsessed with pursuing an unworkable and unnecessary identity-card database must be held to account.
If 'data sharing' is legalised and any company can gain access to it, what you want to bet people are refused health insurance based on their medical records or genetics?? and what about increased risk of ID fraud when our information is hacked into or lost by incompetent ministers and civil servants? also cold calling by companies was bad when i put myself in the yellow pages, what happens when the private and personal details of the elderly are laid bare for any company to look at and harrass them with relentless phone calls and scams to fleece them of their savings! Shame, Shame, Shame on you Labour!!!!!!
I hope I'm wrong about that; but in the meantime I have already set the ball rolling on emigration from the UK, with a long-term view towards discarding UK nationality. My private information, medical records, or even my DNA, are NOT something which I want to be used for marketing by some private firm, or which can be available to any civil/public servant who might happen to want it, no matter how much of a difference that might make to 'costs'.
I do not think it is an over-reaction to say that I'm quite scared about the implications of this; ordinary people should be worried enough about this to stand up and refuse it.