[no2id-supporters] NO2ID Newsletter No.80

Thu Sep 13 16:27:16 BST 2007

    NO2ID Supporters' Newsletter No. 80 - 13th September 2007

* Contacting us:* Call or email the office - 020-7793-4005 or 
(office at no2id.net). Please do not reply to this email. (The from address 
is not a working email address)

      SAY 'NO2ID' AT PARTY CONFERENCES

NO2ID have joined forces with Friction.tv (Channel 5 News partners) so 
that you can have your say on the National Identity Scheme and the 
database state at three of the upcoming party conferences. Friction.tv 
will be recording 3 minute 'vox pops' on the topic of your choice at the 
LibDem, Labour and Tory conferences, and the most popular subjects will 
be broadcast on Channel 5 News' YOUR VIEWS segment.

Liberal Democrats: Brighton Centre, 15th - 20th September
Labour: Bournemouth International Centre, 23rd - 27th September
Conservatives: Winter Gardens, Blackpool, 30th September - 3rd October

If you can't get along to any of these, then please visit Friction.tv on 
the web and add your comments to the current ID cards debate - 
http://www.friction.tv/debate.php?debateno=851 - or even start your own.

Thank you to everyone who responded to last newsletter's request for 
volunteers. We are looking for still more people to help leaflet each 
party conference, dates and locations as follows:

Cooperative: 12th - 15th September, Westminster
Plaid Cymru: 13th - 15th September, Llandudno
Green: 13th - 16th September, Liverpool
UKIP: 5th - 6th October, Limehouse, London
SNP: 26th - 28th October, Aviemore

If you can help - you may even be attending as a party member - please 
send an e-mail to volunteer at no2id.net with the name of the conference 
you would like to help with in the subject line.

      What's next?

        Local groups news

We have local groups all over the country and in 36 of the 69 locations 
of ID interrogation centres (see 
www.no2id.net/getInvolved/idCentres.php). If you can help to set up a 
local group in one of the remaining towns then please contact us at 
(office at no2id.net). A full list of local groups can be found at 
www.no2id.net/localGroups

        Still showing - "Taking Liberties" documentary film featuring
        NO2ID at cinemas around the country

The documentary which features NO2ID is still showing at a few cinemas 
across the UK. The film is described as "a shocking but hilarious 
polemic documentary that charts the destruction of all your Basic 
Liberties under 10 Years of New Labour". More info at 
http://www.noliberties.com/cinema.htm

        Saturdays 1pm - 3pm - NO2ID Edinburgh street stall

Every week, weather permitting, you will find our campaigning stall at 
the east end of Princes Street, opposite the Balmoral Hotel.  Do drop by 
for a chat.  New volunteers - please contact John (edinburgh at no2id.net), 
and for more group information see http://www.no2id-scotland.net/edinburgh/

        Most Saturdays 2pm - NO2ID Glasgow Street Stall

Most Saturdays there are stalls in Glasgow city centre (usually Buchanan 
Street) from about 2pm. Volunteers are always welcome, please contact 
Geraint if you would like to help: glasgow at no2id.net.

        17th September - Manchester NO2ID at Manchester University
        Freshers' Fair

Monday 17th September - Thursday 20th September, 10:30am-4pm: Manchester 
University Freshers' Fair. We will be encouraging the creation of a 
Students Against ID society at the Manchester Uni Fresher's Fair. If you 
are a Manchester Uni student and able to help us with this, please mail 
us on manchester at no2id.net.

        18th September - Glasgow NO2ID Meeting

Tuesday 18th September, our regular fortnightly meeting at 8pm in Mono. 
All welcome. Map: http://www.glasgow-no2id.org.uk/meeting.html

        Passport interrogations (Glasgow)

Glasgow NO2ID are keen to hear from anyone who has been summoned to 
attend the interrogation centre at Blythswood House after applying for 
their first passport. Please contact Geraint at glasgow at no2id.net or 
Charlie at myspace.com/no2idglasgow

        20th September - NO2ID Edinburgh meeting

Thursday, 20th September 7pm at the Quaker Meeting House, 7 Victoria 
Terrace, Edinburgh EH1 2JL. The Scottish National Entitlement Card is an 
ID card in all but name.  A million of them have been given out to 
pensioners and the disabled, who were given to believe that they were 
applying for a new type of bus pass.  However it is planned to be a 
multi-purpose entitlement card which will be used to give access to 
libraries, health services and so on as well as travel.  John Welford 
returned his card and has been battling with the authorities against 
this scandalous deception for over a year in an attempt to be given a 
simple bus pass.  He will tell his story at the meeting.

        Saturday 22nd September - NO2ID Cambridge Stall

Saturday, 22nd September 10am - Cambridge NO2ID'S next street stall will 
be in the usual spot outside Cambridge Guildhall. Location Map: 
http://tinyurl.com/eo42r. As ever, volunteers to help very welcome - 
please email cambridge at no2id.net, or text/call 07710 469624 if you can 
make it.

        2nd October - Highbury NO2ID Meeting

Tuesday, 2nd October 7:30pm. Highbury NO2ID has a question tabled at the 
council's public meeting.  The meeting starts at 7.30pm and you will 
need to be there at this time, however our question has an early slot on 
the agenda and you can leave afterwards. NO2ID supporters are very 
welcome to come along! Venue: Islington Town Hall, Upper Street, 
Islington, N1 2UD. Contact highbury at no2id.net for more information.

        13th October - Manchester NO2ID Street Stall

Saturday, 13th October 1-3pm in St. Anne's Square. The main objectives 
of the afternoon will be to raise awareness among the  public, engage 
people in discussion about the NIR, and collect petitions for the NO2ID 
petition to keep people in touch with the campaign. We'll meet in the 
square itself at 1pm to set up shop; feel free to join us to lend a hand 
or just chat. You don't need any experience or equipment, just a bit of 
time to spare and a friendly smile!

        17th October - Manchester NO2ID Meeting

Wednesday, 17th October 7-9pm in the upstairs function room of the Town 
Hall Tavern, Tib Lane, Manchester. Sadly, this venue is not 
wheelchair-accessible; please contact us if you have accessibility 
needs. At our monthly meetings we discuss the state of the NO2ID 
campaign, what we've been up to recently and where we're going in 
future. Everyone is welcome, newcomer or not, curious or committed. The 
Town Hall Tavern serves reasonably-priced, good quality food until 8pm 
so you don't need to pop home for tea - you can even order your meal 
brought up to the function room.
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      What just happened?

        Cambridge NO2ID kicks off the campaigning season

The autumn NO2ID campaigning season got off to a strong start in 
Cambridge last Saturday. We ran a stall all day at Cherry Hinton 
festival, and in addition to signing up dozens of new supporters, also 
had a visit from Cambridge MP David Howarth, who has supported the 
campaign since 2004: 
(http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ajwatson/no2id-photos/07-09-08-Cherry-Hinton/). 
By coincidence, The Cambridge Evening News also chose Saturday to run a 
short piece we'd contributed on why it would be a bad idea to expand the 
National DNA Database to cover the entire population: 
(http://tinyurl.com/258p7f). Meanwhile, on the same morning, local radio 
station Q103 was giving NO2ID yet more publicity by running a news piece 
on our objections to ContactPoint, the new children's database:  
(http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ajwatson/no2id-audio/07-09-08_Q103_0700.mp3). 
That's a lot of campaigning for one day!

        'Brits back biometrics' - so say CPP Identity Protection

This week the CPP Group plc, a company that "operates in the emerging 
Life Assistance market" put out a press release trumpeting that the 
British public are in favour of biometrics. The group say that this is 
shown from a poll that they conducted. The company's press release is 
not forthcoming with the questions asked, or the actual poll data - but 
that didn't stop the media dutifully repeating the company's claims. The 
'View London' website for instance clearly decided to pump the story up 
a bit when they proclaimed: "The majority of Britons are prepared to 
surrender their fingerprints and iris identities to a central government 
database in order to fight crime, a survey suggests." Most other media 
outlets picked up on the claim that "80 per cent of Brits say they would 
be happy to swap their Chip and PIN keypad for a finger print reader" 
though for some reason some reports forgot to mention that amongst the 
people asked it was only "if it meant their personal details were 
safer". A December 2006 article 'A finger on the pulse' in 'The Banker' 
magazine pointed out that there is "consumer resistance" to biometrics. 
In the article Charlie Harrow, product manager at NCR's financial 
solutions division pointed out the problem in the biometric versus PIN 
debate: "A PIN is a secret and a PIN can be changed if it's compromised, 
and you have different PINs for different applications. With biometrics, 
none of these things are true. A biometric is a unique identifier, but 
it's not a secret."

        Worldwide 'Freedom Not Fear' demonstrations

'Freedom Not Fear' is the slogan of an anti-surveillance demonstration 
to be held in Berlin on 22 September. A coalition of German civil rights 
organisations, professional bodies and political groups is backing the 
protest, opposing biometrics and RFID in passports, ID cards and chip 
implants. The German demo will be one of several taking place around the 
world on the same day.
See www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/content/view/125/116/lang,en/

        The Abolition of privacy and Data Sharing - not such a new idea

The government's plan to abolish privacy through the wholesale sharing 
of data across government has been murmured about longer that one might 
think. Back in October 1996 when Labour were still in opposition Geoff 
Hoon, the then party spokesman on Trade and Industry responsible for the 
information superhighway, gave a very telling interview to Wired 
Magazine. In it he said: "At the moment we have a principal that 
information collected for one purpose should not be used for another 
purpose. I'm not sure we're going to get the benefits of integration if 
we can't provide information across departments. Removing those limits, 
though, will be a big issue in the UK. That is something that we will 
have to debate. It's not something that I could say that either the 
Labour Party - or indeed the public - are ready for."
Of course there has been no debate over data-sharing. Hoon went on to 
show that he had no concept of what privacy actually is when he said: 
"Personally I think the important thing about privacy is that if 
information is held about people, it is held accurately. I think we need 
to be much more determined to allow individuals access to information 
that is held about them, and much more determined to ensure that it is 
accurate."

        Ghana National ID Card TV Advertisement

In Ghana the government have been using a rather strange television 
advert to promote their national ID card scheme. The ad features a choir 
of singers and a karaoke style display of lyrics such as: "Our nation 
calls for duty now, all for one and one for all". You can watch the 
video and sing along at 
(http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=8087405). 
Perhaps the UK government will commission a UK remix.
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      "ID" in the news

        Fears over NHS e-records system - BBC News Online 12/9/07

A key plank of the £6.8bn NHS IT upgrade project in England has come 
under attack from MPs.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6991540.stm

        Matching genes for criminal injustice - The Register 12/9/07

Next week, the Nuffield council on Bioethics is set to publish its 
thoughts on the ethics of using biometrics as forensic tools. In the 
lead up to the publication of the report, to be entitled The Forensic 
Use of Bioinformation: Ethical Issues, the debate about the use of DNA, 
particularly, has intensified.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/12/dna_database_debate/

        ID cards 'fundamentally flawed' says face recognition expert -
        Daily Mail 11/9/07

Plans for identity cards are "fundamentally flawed" because people are 
so bad at comparing mug shots to living people, a scientist has warned. 
Plans to use computer face recognition software to identify criminals 
captured on CCTV are similarly flawed.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=481261&in_page_id=1770

        Social security scheme for residents - GulfNews.com 8/9/07

Dubai: The more than five million population in the UAE will be brought 
under a social security scheme as the Emirates Identity Authority (EIA) 
strengthens the ID card scheme, a top official said. "Once implemented 
fully, each resident and UAE national will be a 'number' to us and the 
information will be stored in the database for all government and 
non-government services".
http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/07/09/09/10152365.html

        Plan to put everyone in DNA database hinges on human rights case
        - Out-Law 7/9/07

Lord Justice Sedley's proposal to put everyone in the UK on a DNA 
database would be dependent on a British man's case against the UK at 
the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), according to a privacy law 
expert. Michael Marper is objecting to the retention of his DNA 
information on the Home Office's database, despite the fact that he has 
never been convicted of a crime.
http://www.out-law.com/page-8455

        Trial by biometrics: How do telephone lie detectors work? - BBC
        News Online 7/9/07

Britain's largest local authority, Birmingham Council, is to install a 
telephone lie detection system in an effort to combat benefit cheats. 
Software that scans speech patterns is being trialled for weeding out 
benefit cheats.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6983359.stm

        All UK 'must be on DNA database' - BBC News Online 5/9/07

The whole population and every UK visitor should be added to the 
national DNA database, a senior judge has said. The present database in 
England and Wales holds details of 4m people who are guilty or cleared 
of a crime.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6979138.stm

        Fascist Police State Looms Closer With "Intelligent CCTV" -
        RINF.com 25/8/07

A new CCTV system is being trialled at one of the UK's busiest train 
stations. Known as "Intelligent CCTV", the software will monitor and 
predict human behaviour and can be linked to a national police database. 
Sheffield is the first train station in the UK to trial the system but a 
national roll out of the technology is expected, creating 20% of all UK 
CCTV systems using these methods.
http://tinyurl.com/yvbe5x

(Please send me any items of interest you encounter - 
Editor(newsletter at no2id.net) )
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Publication details: © NO2ID 2007 - This document may be freely 
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NO2ID, Box 412, 19-21 Crawford Street, LONDON W1H 1PJ

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