The UK's Total Surveillance

Budenny writes "The Register has a story in its ongoing coverage of the UK ID Card story. This one suggests, with links to a weekend news story, that the Prime Minister in waiting has bought the idea that all electronic transactions in the UK should be linked to a central government/police database. Every cash withdrawal, every credit card purchase, ever loyalty card use ... And that data should flow back from the police database to (eg) a loyalty card use. So, for example, not only would the government know what books you were buying, but the bookstore would also know if you had an outstanding speeding ticket!"

short film on getting pizza under surveillance

[vinsci]

Watch Ordering pizza [aclu.org] (turn on your speakers!)

Although this film was made in response the the U.S. Information Awareness Office [wikipedia.org] program, it is equally relevant here.

Pendantic Mode On

[mutube]

The public do not elect the Prime Minister. The public elect their regional MP (Member of Parliament) who takes a seat in the House of Commons representing a particular party. The Prime Minister is (by tradition, not constitution) the leader of the party with the most MP's in parliament. So, don't blame us.

Re:Terrorists

[1u3hr]

Interesting to see a definition from Webster's 1913 edition:

Terrorism [uchicago.edu], n. [Cf. F. terrorisme.] The act of terrorizing, or state of being terrorized; a mode of government by terror or intimidation. Jefferson.

So after a couple of centuries we're back at the original definition.

Re:I was afraid for a moment.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Point 2

_Really_ don't underestimate. The Brits are getting better and better at these kind of projects. Case in point in the London Congestion Charge Zone: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_congestion_cha rge [wikipedia.org] - project completed successfully, very significant technology problems solved. Of course it's failed to improve the Londons traffic problems (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london /3958931.stm) but it's been a great source of additional revenue.

And Re: Point 1 - how long do you think it will be before other governments get interested?

Only possibly FUD

[Epeeist]

If it had been in the "News of the World" or "Sunday Mail" I might have agreed with you. However the Observer is one of the two Sunday newspapers that are actually newspapers (the Independent being the other, the Sunday Times is an upmarket Murdoch tabloid).

So, even though there have been some fairly well reported failures in UK government IT projects I am not dismissing this one.

 

Re:There's this interesting stuff called

[CodeArtisan]

Money - use it in cash transactions. If you remove their ability to collect data...

...they will RFID the money.

Re:I was afraid for a moment.

[TobascoKid]

The Brits are getting better and better at these kind of projects

Any IT success with the congestion charge is more an exception than the rule.For example, IT in the NHS has been, in general, a disaster [computerweekly.com].

With UK government IT, if it doesn't generate income for the government it's pretty much garunteed to be a costly failure - and when it is revenue generating, they still have a habit of failure [computerweekly.com].

Re:*gasp*

[Anonymous Coward]

And in the UK (bringing it all back slightly more on-topic) it's actually a criminal offence to sell "intoxicating liquor" to somebody who is drunk...

Re:Bye Bye British Democratic Heritage

[UpnAtom]

Re: stopping ID cards, go to NO2ID [no2id.net].

PR will help but isn't nearly enough. Multiple electoral candidates from parties will help too.

We need to devolve power from the PM. He/she should not be allowed to exert undue influence over ministers and MPs - perhaps by no-one (including the electorate) knowing who the PM will be, thus voting purely on which candidate you trust. The elected MPs will subsequently vote for a PM, and perhaps several senior ministers.

The House of Lords should be able to set up courts to hold ministers accountable under existing behavioural guidelines.

I'd be tempted to try secret ballots too. The data could always be revealed just before the next election.

I'm not sure the PM's office should be able write legislation. The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 [blogspot.com] (never heard of it?) contains a clause which is equivalent to Hitler's Enabling Act ie instant dictatorship in the event of an emergency (Reichstag). I'm still not sure if the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill [blogspot.com] (since amended) is even worse.

Our Parliamentary Committee for the Constitution said that the National Identity Cards Bill should be renamed the National Identity Register and Identity Cards Bill [parliament.uk]. They were ignored and thus only now, once the legislation has been passed, do the public (and MPs) get to see the massive privacy implications.

Last time we had these kind of upstarts abusing the will of the people, we had a Civil War and chopped off the leader's head.

Re:*gasp*

[voice_of_all_reason]

Dear UK people, it would be a good idea to invest in somthing like anonet

Oh, it's way past that. They need to move right to investing in guns by this stage.

Wait, UK? Ha ha! Too late, they've already criminalized knives .