UK News Articles

Articles from the foreign press discussing identity cards – either the UK scheme or another one.


Recently China implemented new restrictions on the use of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), by introducing the requirement for VPN providers to be registered with the Chinese Government. VPNs are very popular in China as a means of getting around the Chinese Government’s internet monitoring and censorship programme that goes under the euphemism of the “Great Firewall of China”.   Given the ability of VPNs to break state censorship it is not surprising that the Chinese government has initiated a clamp-down on their use. The internet monitoring busting capabilities of VPNs is something that the UK Government may have to face in the near future following the introduction of the Investigatory Powers Act (IP Act) and the Digital Economy Act (DE Act).  Both of these will drive an increased use of VPNs in the UK. In the case of the IP Act VPNs are likely to be employed by internet users to […]

What Chance a UK Ban on VPNs?


  NO2ID Press Release – IMMEDIATE 4th November 2015 The new draft surveillance bill is like an iceberg, with a vast bulk of technical change obscured beneath the surface, according to civil liberties organisation NO2ID[1]. Theresa May presented the Investigatory Powers Bill [2] to parliament today as a measure “consolidating and updating our investigatory powers, strengthening the safeguards”. But it amounts to a dramatic alteration in the powers already available not just to the intelligence services, but to police, tax inspectors, and officials and regulators in almost every department of state [3]. It replaces several pieces of complex and technical legislation. Guy Herbert General Secretary for NO2ID, said: “I would have more sympathy for the Home Secretary if she did not resort to glib hypotheticals about kidnapped children. This is not a proposed bill that is easy to understand or straightforward in effect.” “The much trumpeted change in oversight focuses […]

NO2ID on IP Bill: Government expects parliament to swallow an ...


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The creepy extent to which folk at GCHQ have been monitoring and spying on all web users has been revealed in leaked documents on operation ‘Karma Police’. The documents published by The Intercept demonstrate that the UK government’s listening service GCHQ was building a “web browsing profile for every visible user on the internet”. James Baker NO2ID Campaigns Manager said: “Sensitive meta data can be used to build up a profile of the websites you visit. If you’ve ever sought marriage guidance, googled medical conditions or viewed pornography then chances are this programme will have used that information to build up a profile about you. “This is out of control surveillance which demonstrates that ,more than ever, we need independent judicial oversight of government surveillance powers.” These surveillance powers are a typical example of a database state, which is the term we use to describe the tendency of governments to […]

GCHQ surveillance powers – less ‘Karma Police’ and more ’Creep’



Sally Adee discusses in an article in New Scientist magazine whether it is possible to permanently delete a social media profile. The article highlights the situation with the recently hacked Ashley Madison website (an adultery website) which guaranteed to remove all members date upon payment of a £15 fee.  However, the recent hacking of the site has highlighted that due to financial auditing requirements, credit card details and the name used to scrub the account have been retained.  This obviously defeats the point of the user paying to have their records removed. Many sites such as Facebook have ambiguous policies on deleting data and what data is actually deleted after a user deletes their account.  This is compounded by the fact that deleting digital records is not necessarily as straight-forward as it seems, as account information may be held in multiple data centres distributed across the world. The problem with […]

Is it Possible to Permanently Delete a Social Media Profile?


The BBC News website reports that HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) wants to collect information from internet companies to allow it to identify companies and individuals who have not declared income from online sales. The planned powers would cover sites that carry advertising, App stores such as those for Apple and Google, booking intermediaries like Airbnb and also e-commerce sites such as Ebay.  The plan does raise obvious concerns about the potential for fishing expeditions by HMRC, as they plan to cross-reference this third-party information against other records they hold and information supplied by taxpayers themselves, in order to identify individuals and businesses evading tax. HMRC have issued consultation document on the plans which can be found here. Comment from the Newsblog Editor: These proposed powers are interesting in the context of past attempts to increase HMRC surveillance powers.  HMRC was to be one of the chief beneficiaries of the […]

HMRC Plans to Monitor internet Sites and Transactions for Tax ...


Karl Thomas reports on the Welivesecurity website that local authorities in Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk have suffered more than 160 data breaches in the past year. Most incidents were the result of human error, such as e-mails and letters being misaddressed. However, in one astonishing case a filing cabinet containing sensitive files was sold following an office move, although the files were subsequently recovered from the buyer.

Eastern England Councils in Slew of Data Breach Errors



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Tom Whitehead reports in the Daily Telegraph that an Interception of Communications Commissioner report has highlighted that five people have had their homes searched and computers seized after they were wrongly identified as paedophiles, with one person being arrested.  Additionally, information on dozens of other innocent people was wrongfully disclosed to the officers investigating child sex abuse or pornography due to errors with the requests. Commenting on the errors Joanna Cavan, the head of commissioner’s office, said: “Although the numbers are small, the consequences are significant and they can be devastating.” The failures did not only mean that innocent people were investigated but that some genuine suspects escaped investigation because by the time it was realised that the wrong people were being investigated, the records of the suspects had been deleted by their internet service providers. The report also reveals that 998 errors were made in communications data requests in […]

Innocent People Treated as Paedophiles after Snooping Blunders


A recent article in The Independent newspaper by Andrew Griffin highlights that Facebook is almost certainly tracking people using its rainbow picture tool, which enables users to change their profile picture to rainbow coloured in support of same-sex marriage. In using the tool many users are probably not aware that they are providing demographic data to Facebook which could be used to target advertising, or be supplied to third parties.  Just as many are not aware that the Facebook “pay with data” financial model, means that all information provided to the site may potentially be used for commercial purposes.  It should also be noted that although Facebook has stated that the information gathered by the tool will not be used for serving advertising, the site is notorious for its ever-changing privacy model, so the assurance probably needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. Interestingly, social scientists have already […]

Facebook Could Use Rainbow Profile Pictures to Profile Users


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Alexander J. Martin reports on the Register website that people attending the Download Festival had their faces scanned by a Police facial recognition system, and there was surveillance of their on-site location and expenditure via RFID wristbands. Attendees faces were scanned using a system called NeoFace and then compared with a database of “lawfully held European custody photographs”.  The original plan was for attendees not to have been told about the surveillance until after the event; however, publication of an article in the Police Oracle revealed the surveillance plan in advance. In addition RFID wristbands had to be used to make purchases and move about the festival with no opt-out possible.  A significant concern with the use of these RFID wristbands, is that Download’s privacy policy stated that information collected via the RFID cashless payment wristbands, would typically be shared with third-party companies to establish the users interests, purchases and […]

Police Scanned Faces of Everyone at Download Festival



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Today is the 800th anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta, a document which has very much changed the world, being the first document of its kind to protect the rights and freedoms of society and establish that the king was subject to the law.  Of course there is an argument that at the time of its signing, the Magna Carta was not as significant as it has become, but that really isn’t the point, it is what it now stands for that matters. Amongst the many events that have been held to celebrate the anniversary the British Library has revealed the current top 10 clauses people would like to see in a “Magna Carta for the digital age”.  This was the result of a British Library’s project conceived to encourage particularly young people to think about privacy, internet access and freedom in the digital age. See the British […]

Digital Magna Carta ‘Top 10’ Clauses Revealed


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The BBC News website reports that UK Police made 733,237 requests to view communications data over a three-year period according to a report by Big Brother Watch, equivalent to an access request every two minutes. Police Officers wanting to gain access to communications data have to be internally approved by a senior member of the relevant force and on average 96% of such requests are approved. Big Brother Watch wants more transparency about how such requests are authorised and the crimes the data is used to fight.  The group also wants judicial involvement as a final step in the approval process. The actual Big Brother Watch Report can be found here.

UK Police Seek Data Access ‘every two minutes’


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Dan Hyde reports in the Daily Telegraph that Home Secretary Theresa May has indicated that a law to allow snooping on personal email accounts and internet browsing, could be pushed through now that the Conservatives have a parliamentary majority. Her comments were made in the early hours of Friday morning as the Conservatives appeared to heading for a majority.  Previously the so-called  Snoopers’ Charter had been blocked by the Conservatives coalition partners the Liberal Democrats. However, with the Conservatives having only a slim majority, Theresa May could potentially still have an up hill struggle to get the controversial measures through.

Theresa May to Resurrect the Snoopers’ Charter



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The Law Gazette reports that professional bodies representing lawyers and other legal professionals are calling for statutory protection for professional privilege. It follows a landmark ruling by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) ordering the intelligence agency GCHQ to destroy illegally intercepted communications between Libyans subjected to renditions and their lawyers in the UK. However, despite the ruling both the Law Society and the bar have said the ruling does not sufficiently protect lawyer-client communications.  Andrew Caplen, president of the Law Society commenting on the current situation said: ‘The current legislative framework remains unsuitable and we hope that the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act will be amended or replaced to include explicit protection of legal professional privilege.’

Legal bodies call for statutory protection for professional privilege following ...


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The This is Money website reports that insurance customers who swear or use racist language on websites such as Twitter or Facebook could soon find themselves missing out on cheaper insurance deals. California-based Social Intelligence Corp is in talks with UK insurers about introducing software to analyse social media accounts and will allow insurers to decide if someone should be given a special offer. The firm claims that someone with 200 LinkedIn connections, an email address in use for five years and a Facebook profile, is a better risk than someone who doesn’t meet these criteria.  In contrast, insurance customers who swear or use racist language on websites such as Twitter or Facebook could find themselves missing out on cheaper insurance deals.

Insurers on the Lookout for Swearing or Racist Language on ...


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Fred Pearce reports in New Scientist magazine that many people in the UK are worried about having smart meters in their homes because they fear that data about their personal energy use will be shared. The online survey of more than 2400 people in the UK was conducted by Alexa Spence of Nottingham University.  Commenting on the findings that people are worried about what might happen to their energy use data Spence said: “People are becoming increasingly aware of the value of their personal data and privacy, and they often err on the side of caution.”

UK People Wary of Smart Meters