Damian Green: Technology should not be excuse to erode our precious freedoms
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Independent Minds
It is not surprising that Philip Pullman and other authors are enraged at having to pay £64 for a licence to introduce schoolchildren to literature. The way the Government has gone about this is just another in the long line of examples of reaching for a database to solve a problem when this could easily do more harm then good. These databases are presented as being for the convenience of the citizen, when the overwhelming driver is the convenience of the state.
The relationship between the state and the individual is a permanent tension in politics. The danger is that using technology in this way moves the balance too far in favour of the state. Britain used to pride itself on the individual's ability to control his own live, but today our population is more spied upon and controlled than most other democracies. Some of the underlying freedoms which underpin Parliamentary democracy are being seriously eroded.
What is even more dangerous is that they are being eroded from the best of motives, by well-meaning people who would be hurt and horrified to be regarded as anti-democratic; many of them the most senior officials in this country, holding positions of great trust. Permanent Secretaries and police chiefs can be much more dangerous to British democracy than demagogues and extremist politicians. By collecting and sharing masses of private information either to provide the public services for which they are responsible or to try to spot future criminals, they are creating the database state.
This story illustrates a serious problem, which is that to prevent crime the police want information on the innocent, on the off-chance that they will one day commit a crime. For example they will be visiting a thousand addresses in Brighton before the Labour Party conference to check the identity of those living there, before cross-checking all of them with the police national computer.
The irony is that doing this makes the police's job more difficult in the long run, because making all of us potential suspects destroys the ability to police by consent, which has always been at the heart of effective British policing.
Just because technology has transformed the way Government can use personal information does not mean that a sensible government will take that choice. In all eras of technology, the principle that the state should serve the citizen and not vice versa is a good one. The bigger the capacity to collect and share information, the greater danger there is to privacy, and therefore to freedom. It is time for the freedom fighters of the world to fight back against the controlling state.
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Comments
For Damian Green to pontificate on this subject is the most disgusting kind of hypocrisy.
Do we yet know whether the vetting measures that are being introduced are counter productive? There is mounting evidence that they are creating a society of mistrust. Do the benefits of the vetting system outweigh its bad effects. That is what the authors and Damian Green are trying to say.
If Im not free then all this information gathering is necessary and we should head down the road until we reach a "Minority report" scenario with Behavioural psychologists replacing the "Pre-Cogs".
If I am then we have to accept that we can only enforce laws as oppossed to eliminating criminal behaviour.
We expect the Police to maintain a database and vigilance on convicted criminals, however we draw the line at including innocent citizens (and children) in case we commit a crime in the future.
Damian Green is living in a dream world, the well-meaning people in positions of great trust have just betrayed us by claiming expenses to which they are not entitled, thinking they could get away with it(e.g. expensing mortgages on houses that have been paid off, expensing their husband's porn videos).
The Police and civil service view us all as potential criminals, and themselves as the guardians of a good society. As we have seen at the G20 conference the Police covered their identity numbers to perpetrate pre-meditated violent crimes, and have basically become security guards for politicians.
We no longer trust the government to handle our personal data, there are too many risks and absolutely no sdafeguards. If confidential information is not left on a train, it will probably be mined by a third party and sold to the highest bidder.
So let me point out one further extension. The place where children are really at risk in not in schools and nurseries, but in their own homes. "The mother's boyfriend" in particular seems to appear in large numbers of child abuse reports. So let me suggest that parents be told that, in order to protect their children, that they must submit the name of anyone who sleeps over in the house, and is not related to the child, to a CRB check. If the you don't run official checks of anyone you sleep with (in your house), or even someone who is allowed to babysit more than once a month, then your children will be placed on the "at risk" register.
And, of course, the list of those who need checking must be expanded to include anyone who has ever been suspected of any violent crime. As the BBC reported, "Even those like Huntley, without a criminal record, could be barred if officials are convinced by other "soft intelligence" against them." - and of course, you'd never know until the check came back.
Ridiculous? Well, the check every parent who helps out with a school trip sounds pretty ridiculous too. Doesn't it?