NO2ID

Biometrically challenged

2006-10-27T10:13:00.000Z

Word of the Day

biometrics n. Pronunciation Key. (b-mtrks)
The statistical study of biological phenomena.
biometric or biometrical adj.
biometrically adv

Yes, we the British Public are the biological phenomena and our governemnt are the ones who want to statisticaly study us. By signing over your biometrics to the government you are effectively signing away your rights to privacy and freedom forever.

Most of the population are unaware that in 2008 our government will demand you attend an ID Interrogation centre (they are currently being built in these cities) for the purpose of requiring an Identity Card and storing your details on the National Identity Register (NIR). Here you will undergo an intrusive interview where you will have to reveal personal details about yourself and your life history.

Then your biometrics will be recorded. The irises of your eyes will be scanned and stored. Each of your digits will be scanned and added to their mass database. If you thought fingerprinting was only for criminals, think again. These details will be made available to any government linked company and will also be sold to commercial companies such as banks and insurance companies.

Soon, to gain access to any public place (such as shops, banks, your workplace) you will have to provide your biometrics, and in doing so leave behind a unique lifetime trail for anyone to pick up on. Places you may not expect have already began using fingerprint biometric entry schemes, such as pubs and theme parks. The systems are even being seen in our schools.

Fingerprints are easy to fake (see video here of how long it takes these guys to hack a fingerprint scanner.) Databases will always be hacked and computer errors will be made. 71% of people already believe it is inevitable that the data stored on people's identity cards will at some point be leaked, sold, hacked into or in other ways used improperly (from younggov stats).

Do not be under the assumption that signing up for the National Identity Register is voluntary. The government have made sure this is compulsary with hefty fines if you refuse, or fail to keep the information up to date. You will also have to pay around £50 for the initial ID card and the governemnt are putting aside a whopping £5.4 billion to set the scheme in motion.

Many councils have opposed the introduction of this system, view a full list of them here. The Scottish Parliament, and the Welsh and London Assemblies have all passed strongly worded motions against ID cards. Many of these will refuse to cooperate with the ID scheme and so should you.

We are already the most watched counrty in the world, this mass monitoring is the final nail in the coffin. Once you allow this to happen, there will be no choice, no turning back. Total surviellnce, total monitoring and total control.

Do something today. Sign NO2ID's petition. Write to your local MP telling them you oppose the idea. Educate yourself on the full implications. Spread the word and stop your country turing into George Orwell's vision of 1984. Watch the governement's own ID card promotion film and see for yourself.

Feel free to leave comments to show your support, or to voice your opinion.

Fingerprint my kid, please...

2006-10-24T09:21:00.000Z

...Oh, that's right you don't actually need my permission, Mr Headmaster.

Because schools can already fingerprint your child without parental consent, without prior warning or without even letting you know about it. In fact it is already happening in hundreds of schools up and down the country.

For what? I hear you ask. Have thousands of school kids been breaking the law? No, they only want to use the library. In a costly, nationwide scheme, school libraries are replacing 'old-fashioned' barcoded library cards with a new biometric card. One that requires your child to have their biometric ID recorded and stored. This includes fingerprints and mugshots and personal information about your own child.

Andy O'Brien, managing director of Micro Librarian Systems which makes the fingerprint systems insists that they "have never had a single parent object to it, the children love it and it solves the problem of lost library cards."

Oh so that's why the government is implementing this million pound project...to solve the problem of lost library cards. And here's me thinking it was to soften up society's next generation for when Britian becomes a biometric battlefield.

Andy O'Brien should read up on campaigners Leave Them Kids Alone's website, he will find hundreds of objections from angry parents who sadly, have only found out about this initative becasue thier child has come home and told them, "Hey Mum, guess what? I was fingerprinted today!".

As Phil Booth of NO2ID rightly says: "Are we sending our kids to school or to prison? We wouldn't accept fingerprinting for adults without informed consent so it is utterly outrageous that children as young as five are being targeted."

And you have to ask the question, if this was all so innocent, why not just inform parents? Why not request their permission? Are children as young as five really capable of making this informed choice themselves? Or will they, like most infants their age, simply do what their teacher asks them to do?

There is growing concern that schools have been underhanded in their approach to this initative. With reports of teachers telling children "now we're going to play the game of spies, there's no need to tell your parents as it's just a game," before they line them up to have their biometrics scanned and mugshot taken, it's no wonder parents feel a sinister agenda be may lurking beneath the surface. And with teachers claiming it purely 'optional' but pupils complaining otherwise, lack of trust between schools and parents is growing by the day. One parent complained that "Without providing a fingerprint, children are prevented from using the PCs to do their home work (for which they are then threatened with detention if they miss)."

Several schools are now already using the fingerprint system to allow pupils access to and from the school grounds and canteen. How long will it be before this process becomes compulsary anyway? Soon the 'harmless' biometric library card will become a junior biometric ID card, implemented alongside the National ID cards which the government plans to put into force in 2008.

If like many other hundreds of parents you object to this shocking breach of civil liberaties towards our most innocent memebrs of society, you can pledge your support or write to your MP via campaigners Leave Them Kids Alone who have a shocking list of the hundreds of schools who use biometric related systems. They estimate the total number of schools to be 3500, and will have a full list by Janurary 2007. Sadly, if you find your child's school is on this list, there is a good chance they have been fingerprinted already. Ask them. You may not be prepared for the answer.

NO2ID also fully back this campaign. For more information, please visit their offical site.

Attention All Shoppers...

2006-10-23T13:03:00.000Z

...This is a public announcement. Would all Club Card owners please make every detail of their personnel shopping habits known, and be prepared for a huge invasion of privacy and lucrative marketing scams to follow...

You won't hear this announcement over the tannoids at Tesco because it's something the supermarkets don't want you to know.

Club Cards. What do they mean to you? A first class service? Great savings? Those ever wonderful points? Coupons upon coupons that routinely end up in the bin? Looks super shiny and great on the surface though underneath is a whole different scenario.

In reality Club Cards bring a second rate service, dishonest pricing and no real savings. Check your coupons next time and you'll find that they are for a product that was on special offer last month (getting rid of surplus stock), or that the product price is marginally higher than usual (tricking the eye into believing they are seeing a bargain), or that you have to buy three of the the products together to qualify for the saving (duping the customer into spending more than usual). Coupons cause queues, we all know that but the supermarkets don't care about that. They've got you buying something you probably weren't going to. That's all that matters.

Your shopping habits matter a lot to them too. Remember the surveys you used to receive in the post, with a free pen and a prize of ten grand for the winner? This type of marketing is seen less and less and will soon stop altogether. It's not because they didn't attract many responses, or didn't provide accurate enough answers. It's because now we have the Club Card. An intricate database with the times, places and products you buy.

Do you buy late at night? Perhaps you'll soon receive a helpful flyer with updated information on all the 24 hour stores in your area. Do you buy in bulk, in one monthly shop? Perhaps you'll receive the exciting news that you would benefit from the store's online shop.

Have you just had a new addition to the family? Perhaps now you'll receive some coupons for baby food, after all you've been purchasing nappies and baby milk in abundance for the past four months so your little one should be at the weaning stage soon.

Next time you agree to look after the neighbour's cat for two weeks, be prepared to receive cat food coupons for the next year. The Club Card computer will think you've bought a cat. Soon they'll be trying to sell you one.

And as if we weren't bombarded enough by product placement instore, plasma screen advertising, special offers such as good old buy-one-get-one-free, there are new plans to lure you into buying what they think you'd like. Stores have been developing a system that has a 'personnel shopper' on your trolley - mini screen which, when swiped with Club Card, will display personnel recommendations based on your position instore, as you browse the aisles. Ever so helpful, isn't it?

There are many ways to avoid the Club Card snoop on your personal life. You can use an alias when signing up, but then your habits are still recorded (wether it be under a Miss Interpeted name or not) Swapping friends' cards regularly is also recommneded, just to confuse the system. And see here for this chap's novel approach to amassing several shopper's habits into one.

But of course the best way to stop the Club Card snoop is to NEVER sign up for one. And if you already have one? Chuck it in the bin. Along with all those coupons gathering dust in your purse.

Print for a Pint anyone?

2006-10-23T10:42:00.000Z

And so. It begins.

Fingerprinting to gain entry into pubs is already happening, with every intention of going nationwide in line with the (once voluntary, now suddenly compulsory) National ID cards. In an attempt to pin down every British citizen and nail him firmly to the forthcoming National Identity Register, the home office are funding this scheme which oversees pubs and clubs fingerprinting and scanning every person entering their premises, on the pretence of deterring crime. Anyone dejected from the premises will then be systematically barred from any other pub/club in the area. Unless he cuts his fingers off of course. Being a double arm amputee never had so many benefits...

Yeovil is the first unsuspecting city to be hit by the we-want-your-ID authorities. But many have followed, including Coventry, Hull and Sheffield. Interestingly, neighboring towns of Yeovil have since asked for funding to be allocated with them, perhaps due to a problem of displaced crime from Yeovil. One thing is for certain, domestic violence has risen in Yeovil since the scheme began, a fact admitted by the local council there.

Of course displace crime will result from this, a point you think the home office would be concerned over, bearing in mind the scheme was put in place to prevent crime. But like many things with our 'trusted' government, this scheme has an agenda. It has been described as 'voluntary' by the home office but punishments for not subscribing to the scheme are worrying. When pubs/clubs apply for new licenses next year, they will be reported to the police and have their licenses revoked if they do not sign up to the scheme or show a considerable reduction in alcohol related violence. Carrot sticks are also being doled out, with pubs and clubs who do sign up being granted later opening hours.

The main concern here is what this information can be used for. Surely it is a civil right to go for a quiet pint on a Thursday without the evidence being scanned and documented into your biometric data. A whole trail or biometric map of your life can be created. With the National Identity Cards also coming into place in 2008, your every move will be more or less recorded. When such a thing is compulsory, we will think nothing of a biometric scan to enter a supermarket, use a hole-in-the-wall, take out a book in a library, trot down the local for a Jack Daniels and coke...

Our spending habits recorded, our cash withdrawals noted, our drinking habits monitored? 1984 is just around the corner.

'Little' Brother?

2006-10-23T08:58:00.000Z

It's been described as CCTV for the masses. It's been dubbed by its founder as Little Brother. It's the future of CCTV and it's coming to a community near you soon. And if you live in Spitalfields, East London then it already has.

Shoreditch are a company intent on one thing - reducing crime and fear in communities. Their solution? Community CCTV cameras. Up to 400 (yes, 400) CCTV cameras erected in a single residency. Accessed by everyone and anyone who lives there. (Yes, even the paedophiles) From the comfort of their own front room too. It's a revolution. A saviour. They call it 'fighting crime from your sofa'.

But even the founder has admitted it won't deter crime. What it will do is make the resident's feel safer. So, a bit of false advertising there, (see website) or more accurately, a false sense of security for the residents. Hmm. Not a good start.

Some may feel that this Little Brother is harmless, but one has to remember. Little Brothers do grow up. Is this the world we want our children to grow up in? If you take your child to the park and see a lone man standing by a tree watching them, at least you can remove your child from his gaze. With Little Brother in place, how will you ever know if your child is being watched by unwanted eyes or not?

Despite the obvious breach of privacy the Little Brother's pose, they are undoubtedly open to all sorts of abuse. Snooping, spying, stalking. When I put my concerns to the Shoreditch company they responded with the reassurance that there are 3 safeguards in place to prevent abuse of the cameras.

1. Only public areas are visible on the cameras. (So that would include play parks, shops, community centres, libraries...)
2. There is no pan, tilt, or zoom facility available to subscribers. This means they are unable to focus on an individual. (But the cameras do have a recognition distance in place so individuals can still be indentified...)
3. The views from the cameras are set to rotate from view to view with 30 seconds only for each view. The order of views is also randomised, making it impossible to trace an individual's journey.

Hmm. Interesting point there, number three. My home town has a 'novelty' public CCTV camera in the city square, accessible by anyone via the city council's website. It doesn't have a 'randomised' view and does allows the user unlimited access, allowing you to trace an individual's journey. Oh and it also has the wonderful 'pan, tilt and zoom' facility. If authorities can set it up in the 'public area' of the city square without civil liberties being breached, then there is always the possibility of these controls being added to the community cameras.

Shoreditch went on to reassure me that actually 'the local authority welcomes the scheme because there is a limit to how many people they can employ to look over their cameras. By having a community of eyes on the cameras, it increases their ability to spot and respond to incidents, and in that way contributes to the authority's local crime-fighting capabilities.'

Ah, so it's just a way of getting the public to do the police's job again, not a crime-fighting-from-your-sofa deterent. Oh but wait, crime in the Spitalfields area is actually falling anyway, as quoted by Dan Hodges of the Shoreditch Trust. It's the fear of crime that's rising. Now I see, Little Brother is merely a tool to quash fear in local residents.

Perhaps what they should really be fearing is Little Brother, creeping into a community near you soon.

Merchandise

2006-10-23T08:43:00.000Z

Support the cause

Let the rest of the world know

Help raise funds for NO2ID's campaign

Look cool while doing so

Woman's sizes also available

Buy NO2ID merchandise here