7 December 2006
SPREAD OUR CHRISTMAS MESSAGE ABOUT THE BIG OPT OUT
Last week NO2ID, together with the foundation for information policy research (fipr), launched 'The Big Opt Out' - a campaign to draw people's
attention to the growing database state in the guise of the government's NHS Care Record System (see www.TheBigOptOut.org). The system will form a huge
centralised national database of patient medical records and personal information (sometimes referred to as the NHS ’spine’) with no choice for patients at all. It is likely that this system will be linked to the National Identity Register via citizen's unique National Identity Register Number.
This Christmas we want to spread the word and get as many people to request an opt-out from the system as we possibly can. It's a time of the year when
we all get in touch with family, friends and acquaintances. So we ask that supporters use this spirit of friendship to send the below email to everyone
they know this Christmas.
Email from: Phil Booth
Subject: Please don't send me a Christmas card this year
Instead, use the stamp to send a copy of this letter to your GP:
http://www.TheBigOptOut.org/?page_id=23
Doing this will not only keep your own medical records where they should be
– between yourself and your doctor - it will help protect medical
confidentiality for everyone by demonstrating that you, like millions of
others*, do not consent to your personal health information being uploaded
to NHS central systems and potentially being made accessible to hundreds of
thousands people - very few of whom would have anything to do with your
clinical care.
Opting out in this way will not affect your access to healthcare but, if
enough of us do it, it will send a powerful message to those in Whitehall
who are currently trying to seize all of everybody's most private
information without even seeking permission.
I was half-kidding about the Christmas card, but I'm deadly serious about
opting out. Please read the letter and, if you agree that your privacy (and
the privacy of everyone else in your family) is worth the price of a stamp,
fill it in and send it to your GP.
And if you could also forward this mail to *your* Christmas card list, 2007
might end up being a very good New Year...
All the very best for the holiday season,
Phil
--
Phil Booth
National Coordinator, NO2ID
http://www.no2id.net
*The latest Medix poll shows that 52% of GPs would not upload their
patients' records to the spine, and only 13% would be willing to proceed
without consent. An even more recent survey by JRRT shows that 53% of
patients are opposed to automatic uploading of their records, with only 27%
in favour.
** Stop Press : Scroll to the end of this newsletter for an urgent Freedom of Information Act action. **
What's next?
Local groups
We have new local groups in Worcester (contact via worcester@no2id.net), Tunbridge Wells (contact via tunbridge.wells@no2id.net) and Daventry
(contact via daventry@no2id.net) We have local groups around the country and in 36 of the 69 locations of ID interrogation centres. If you can help to
set up a local group in one of the remaining towns then please contact us at (office@no2id.net). A full list of local groups can be found at
www.no2id.net/localGroups
Calling all Labour party members
NO2ID is non partisan, but that doesn't mean we can't use political affiliation where it matters. While a lot of our supporters are hostile to
the present Government, others are not. We are aware that a number of our supporters and members are members of the Labour Party - several Labour
councillors or activists - and would prefer the Government simply to change its mind about the appalling ID Card policy rather than be removed from
office in consequence.
If that is you, we'd like to introduce you to others of like mind, and encourage you to work together with a view to changing other Labour movement
hearts and minds. We'll do what we can to help, but really want this to be an insider's thing, so that it is very clear the Labour Campaign for Privacy
(for example - whatever to you it seems best to call it), is not interference by any of the opposition parties who already support NO2ID.
Contact Guy Herbert (general.secretary@no2id.net) in the first instance, and he will put you in touch and (not being Labour himself) keep out of the way.
1st Tuesday of the month - Hackney NO2ID monthly meetings
The Hackney local group covering London E8, E5, E9 & N16 areas meet on the first Tuesday of each month at 7:30 in Cafe Bohemia by Hackney Central
Station. New support very welcome to help raise awareness over the coming months.
Saturdays - Cambridge NO2ID Campaign stall
Cambridge NO2ID will be running Saturday street stalls outside Cambridge Guildhall from 10am onwards on 16th December, and every third Saturday into
the new year. Location: (http://tinyurl.com/eo42r). Volunteers to help very welcome - contact Andrew Watson via cambridge@no2id.net, or on 07710 469624.
Saturdays 1pm - 3pm - Edinburgh NO2ID Campaign stall
After a short break during the Edinburgh Festival, NO2ID Edinburgh has resumed its regular Princes Street campaigning stall on Saturdays. We shall
be at our usual location at the east end of Princes Street, opposite the Balmoral Hotel, from 1pm - 3pm this coming Saturday. We use our stall to
raise public awareness of the Identity Cards scheme, collect donations and entries for the NO2ID petition, and also to increase membership of our
group. Please do pop by for a chat if you happen to be around. We shall be aiming to have the stall up and running most Saturdays, and new
volunteers are always very welcome. You can see photos of our stall and contact details at: www.no2id-scotland.net/edinburgh/.
Edinburgh group campaigning update
As there will be elections for the Scottish Parliament and local councils in May 2007, the Edinburgh NO2ID group is planning to intensify its campaigning
during the run-up to the elections. An initial group planning meeting was held on 4th December when a series of individual and group actions were
agreed. All the parties represented in the Scottish Parliament, apart from Labour, have declared themselves against ID cards. In Scotland there is also
the question of the Scottish National Entitlement Card, an ID card in all but name, which has been misleadingly represented to the over 60s and the
disabled as a simple bus pass.
12th December - Highbury NO2ID Meeting
Tuesday, 12th December 6.30 for a 7pm start at Jorene Celeste pub on 153 Upper Street. All welcome!
13th December - Skypecast Webchat organised by Bristol NO2ID
Wednesday, 13th December at 7:30pm. 'An opportunity to get together with other NO2IDers from across the country and talk about highs and lows the campaign. The chat room will be open to visitors so you may get the opportunity to practice your persuasion skills. I expect we'll be chatting about recent developments until about 8:15pm at which point there will be an online meeting for the Bristol sub-group,' writes Dave gould. (Skype sofwtare required - see http://www.skype.com/download/). Further details will be posted shortly on the NO2ID forum at http://forum.no2id.net/viewtopic.php?t=14275
15th November - Manchester NO2ID - Piccadilly Area "Pub Crawl"
Wednesday, 15th November, 5:30pm - 6:30pm, we will again be meeting to distribute NO2ID flyers and leaflets around local pubs and businesses. We'll
meet at the Market Street corner of Piccadilly Gardens, near Boots and Somerfield, divide up into small groups and fan out into town, asking for
permission to deposit NO2ID material where it will be found and read by members of the public. It doesn't matter if you've not come along to an
event before, just show up and look for the No2ID badges, T-shirts and flyers.
What just happened?
Thanks for your passport data
Many thanks to everyone who sent us anonymous data from their passport. We had a superb response - in a single day we tripled our data set and since then
patterns have been jumping right out. Watch out for more news from us on the government's insecure ePassports soon.
National Union of Journalists affiliates to NO2IDA ballot of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) members has resulted in the union affiliating to NO2ID. Just under 65% of those voting backed
affiliation to the campaign. The vote followed on from a motion passed at the unions Annual Delegate Meeting (ADM) earlier this year. Christina Zaba,
Chair of Bristol NUJ branch said: "I feel proud to belong to the NUJ today. The results of this ballot shows that our members are aware of what is going
on around them. NO2ID and the NUJ are not averse to voluntary ID cards, but we are against this system which allows the government, and everyone else,
to spy on us".
EU: Biometric EU ID cards by the back door
Statewatch reports that: "The Justice and Home Affairs Council on 4-5 December is to adopt - without debate - a Resolution on 'security standards'
for national identity cards across the EU: Draft Resolution: EU doc no:15356/06 The EU does not have the legal power to impose 'security
standards' and biometrics on national ID cards. However, this 'non-binding' Resolution opens the way (enables) for biometrics to be taken (with the same
standards as already agreed for EU passports, that is, fingerprints) and be added to ID cards (together with other 'optional' biometrics) where the ID
cards are used for 'travel purposes', which they are throughout the Schengen area. As this is a so-called 'non-binding' ('soft law') measure national and
European parliaments (let alone civil society) have no say."
The draft resolution also proposes that EU ID cards be International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) compliant. See www.statewatch.org/news/ and the draft resolution(pdf) can be downloaded from http://tinyurl.com/v4dua
fipr publishes children's databases report
The foundation for information policy research (fipr) has produced a report, commissioned by the Information Commissioner, that looks at databases on children. The report, "Children's Databases: Safety and Privacy", analyses the databases being built to collate information on children in education, youth justice, health, social work and elsewhere. These systems are linking up through the new "Information Sharing Index".
Download the report from www.fipr.org/childrens_databases.pdf
NO2ID 'Civil liberty vs. the database state' meeting
Last Wednesday, in a packed Imperial College lecture theatre in west London, NO2ID held a public meeting 'Civil liberty vs. the database state'. The
meeting was the launch pad for 'The Big Opt Out' - a campaign focusing on the centralised database at the heart of the new NHS IT programme
(Connecting for Health (CfH)).
Sir Malcolm Rifkind QC, MP said: "The case for identity cards or other large databases must be based upon hard evidence. These criteria are not being met on either ID cards or other measures that restrict civil liberties." Ross Anderson, professor of Security Engineering at Cambridge University, spoke about the need to opt out of databases like the NHS Care Record System to give cover to those that HAVE to opt out, adding that it is a "civil duty to opt out of everything you can". Anderson also questioned the opposition parties' resolve to stop the database state, pointing out that the National Identity Register's citizen index - the National
Identity Register Number would be the eGovernment keystone, and that opposition parties must work out how to run government and look at all of the databases before they come to power. Journalist Henry Porter suggested that politicians don't grasp the danger that the database state represents and so are not protecting us from it. "Almost no politicians get it from the heart," he said.
Telegraph/YouGov poll suggests mass resistance to ID cards
A new poll commissioned by the Telegraph from YouGov suggests what NO2ID has long believed is correct - that a large number of UK citizens will strongly reject ID cards. Though the poll found that only 39% of respondents were opposed to ID cards 21% of those opposed said they would refuse to have a card even if it meant paying a small fine, 7% said they would refuse even if it meant a large fine, 15% said they would refuse even if it meant a prison sentence - extrapolating to the whole population in the weirdy way that pollsters are wont to do that's around 1.5 million. With prisons already severely overcrowded perhaps the best thing the Home Office could do is
scrap ID cards.
See http://www.yougov.com/archives/pdf/TEL060101024_3.pdf
Advertising Standards Authority adjudicates in favour of NO2ID
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has rejected complaints against NO2ID after hearing eight complaints against our
advertisement in the Labour Conference edition, "ID cards have worked in Europe before". The ASA noted that "the ad had been intended to encourage discussion on a
sensitive political issue. We considered that, although the ad may have been distasteful to some, it was unlikely to be seen as making a serious
comparison between Tony Blair and Hitler but instead as highlighting a lobbying groups opinion that ID cards should not be introduced because of
the threat to civil liberty they posed. We concluded that, as such, the ad was unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence."
"ID" in the news
Heathrow begins biometric trials - BBC News on-line 6/12/06
Airline passengers at Heathrow airport are being invited to sign up for a British trial of biometric security scanners. Travellers will be able to use
fingerprint, facial recognition and eye scanning to bypass boarding queues.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6211122.stm
MySpace Gets (Way) Personal with Sentry - Dr Dobbs Database Blog 6/12/06
MySpace has teamed with Sentinel Tech Holding Corp., creators of the Sentry system for "voluntary" ID authentication and background checking, to
implement, within 30 days, a solution that automatically screens MySpace profiles to determine if page-owners are convicted sex offenders.
http://www.ddj.com/blog/databaseblog/archives/2006/12/myspace_gets_wa.html
DH rejects patient opt-out requests - eHealth Insider 4/12/06
The Department of Health has rejected patients’ requests to stop their information being uploaded to the NHS data spine. On Friday the DH wrote to
patients who had sent in a coupon from the Guardian newspaper requesting to opt-out telling them that would not be able to do. The response has been
criticised by the British Medical Association who claim ministers originally promised that patients would be able to opt out and that to deny that right
would breach the Data Protection Act.
http://www.ehiprimarycare.com/news/item.cfm?ID=2316
'Students should face pre-exam security tests to stamp out fraud' - Daily Mail 4/12/06A Government-backed report is recommending tougher measures such as fingerprint or retina scanning to prevent students drafting in friends to
take exams in their place.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=420481&in_page_id=1770
Most patients reject NHS database in poll - The Guardian 30/11/06
A national campaign was launched last night to persuade people to refuse on privacy grounds to have their medical records uploaded to a national
database. Guy Herbert, of the NO2ID group, which is also campaigning against the introduction of identity cards, said: "We'd like to get up to a million
people to contact their GPs."
http://society.guardian.co.uk/e-public/story/0,,1960271,00.html
Fingerprint checks at airports mooted - The Telegraph 28/11/06
Airline passengers are to face routine fingerprinting, with the Government already involved in talks with the aviation industry over the installation
of scanners at airports. Discussions began before the thwarting of the alleged plot to blow up transatlantic flights in August and the first "proof
of concept" trials of the technology will be unveiled at Heathrow within the next few weeks.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/27/ntravel127.xml
EU: New biometric ID cards are not secure, warns EU FIDIS project - europa.eu 27/11/06
The EU-funded FIDIS (Future of Identity in the Information Society) Network of Excellence (NoE) has issued a stark warning that implementation of the
current generation of biometric travel ID will dramatically decrease security and privacy, and increase the risk of identity theft. [Our emphasis]
http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/en/document/6293/194
Child database 'will ruin family privacy' - The Telegraph 23/11/06
Parents will be devalued and family privacy shattered by the mass surveillance of all 12 million children in England and Wales, says a report
today commissioned by Parliament's Information Commissioner. In what is likely to be a major embarrassment to Tony Blair, it says proposals for a
£224 million database containing details of every child will waste millions of pounds, undermine parental authority and actually put children in more
danger.
http://tinyurl.com/y2crpl
Whitehall readies ID card action plan - Computing 23/11/06
The newly-formed Identity and Passport Service (IPS) will publish an action plan for the national biometric ID card scheme next month, and procurement
will start next summer. IPS chief executive James Hall announced the new details – the first since the start of the Home Office review in the early
summer – at an industry briefing last week.
http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/news/2169313/whitehall-readies-id-card
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