Latest from NO2ID

Comments made in connection with each news item are personal observations and not necessarily those of NO2ID.

Although MP Damian Green has won the legal battle to have his DNA removed from the National Database still hundreds of thousands of other subsequently proven innocent people still have theirs in place. This is only a victory for a relatively high-profile politician, leaving all others still tarred with the DNA brush. Clearly the UK government gives not a damn about the European Court of Human Rights ruling. Because of this, NO2ID has joined forces with Genewatch UK, Open Rights Group, Liberty and others to set up a website at www.ReclaimYourDNA.org to give guidance to those afflicted with this gross assault on human rights and how to take action to try and get it removed. MP Diane Abbott and lawyers from Liberty will be holding a ‘DNA clinic’ in Hackney, London to give advice. For more details visit the website above.

While Britain has the largest DNA database per capita of any other country in the world researchers at the forensic DNA technology company, Nucleix, have demonstrated that a person’s DNA can be faked by modifying a blood sample. Following such a test carried out by Nucleix in which they modified a sample and sent it to a US lab for analysis, it was declared that they failed to identify the ‘forgery’. This flies in the face of government insistence that DNA-profiling is infallible.

A video entitled ‘Politics of Identity’ by Dr Edgar Whitley of the London School of Economics has just been posted online in which he discusses the liklihood of the ID Card scheme backfiring on the government. See it at http://www2.lse.ac.uk/videoAndAudio/research/thePoliticsOfPersonalIdentity.aspx

Some domestic flight carriers are now demanding those who book their flights online to furnish passport details. Refusal to do so could mean that one may not be allowed to fly. When operators British Airways and Easy Jet were questioned why such information is necessary, they said ‘it is a government/EU requirement’. Just how long will it be before long-distance online rail bookings will also require passport details? It beggars belief!

These facts from a recent Daily Mail lead article on our surveillance state.
- More than 1,500 requests are made every day under the Regulatory and Investigatory Powers Act - an act which was orginally was set up for police and intelligence agencies to combat terrorism. It seems we are the terrorists now!

- Now there are 795 bodies, including 500 councils, often using junior staff to using the Regulatory and Investigatory Powers Act to investigate, what could often be described as, relatively petty anti-social matters.

- Britain has a DNA database which exceeds that of the US and is the largest in the world, with over 1 million innocent people included on it.

- There are now 4.2million CCTV cameras in Britain, whose purpose, in many cases, has been described as doubtful.

- Of 8 million criminal record checks conducted, 2,700 people have been wrongly classified as having a criminal conviction.

- In 5,000 schools across the country, children are now routinely required to give fingerprints to use the library, while the national ID database scheme will require that each and every one of us give our fingerprints - identity features which can be easily mis-interpreted.

The government denies that scrapping the ID card scheme will save it the estimated £3 billion to implement. Apparently, we are going to foot the bill when we compulsorily apply for one!

The Identity and Passport Service have published their latest paper on the National Identity Scheme (NIS). In it they categorically state that in able to safeguard identity “the vision for the NIS is that it will become an essential part of everyday life, uderpinning interactions and transactions between individuals, public services and government and supporting people to protect their identity". I might add that it will make an ideal instrument for gross fraud and identity theft!

A small business enterprise has been ruined by a false entry in a court database. Efforts by the owner to get compensation for the error have been turned down by Mr Justice Bill Blair QC, brother of the former PM, on the basis that the civil service cannot be found liable for any book-keeping mistakes. This could set a worrying precedent in our emerging database state, with the authorities shedding any responsibility for data errors, leaving us in the lurch. They don’t know the meaning of the word ‘justice’!