From the Telegraph:
“If national governments and law enforcement organisations truly believe that online criminals and international terrorists don’t know how to hide their online traces, then we have a bigger problem than we thought.â€
Rik Ferguson, a security expert at Trend Micro
Stating the bleedin’ obvious, but sometimes the bleedin’ obvious needs to be stated.
Every document that has any personal information about me or my family gets shredded before chucking it in the recycling. After today, I wonder if there is really any point:
Confidential details of 15 million child benefit recipients are on computer discs lost by HM Revenue and Customs, the BBC understands.
The chairman of the organisation, Paul Gray, has resigned.
Revenue and Customs says it does not believe the records – names, addresses, date of birth and bank accounts – have fallen into the wrong hands.
They do not “believe” it has fallen into the wrong hands. I feel so much better now.
Replace the words “child benefit recipients” with “identity card registrants” and read the story again. Let’s face it, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility.
BBC political editor Nick Robinson said he understood ministers had been aware of the problem for nine to 10 days.
Oh goody, another cover-up.
Mr Darling is expected to outline the measures taken to protect those whose data has been lost.
I await with baited breath.
Update: So it’s only 25 million records then. Quite impressive for a bunch of totalitarian, info-facist fuckwits.
Proposals to fingerprint children aged 11 to 15 as part of new passport and ID card plans are being considered.
Immigration minister Liam Byrne told ITV1’s The Sunday Edition the proposals were being “looked at”.
Under existing plans every passport applicant over 16 will have details – including fingerprints – added to a National Identity register from 2008.
But there was concern youngsters could use passports without biometric details up to the age of 20, said Mr Byrne.
This could happen if they are issued a child passport between the ages of 11 and 15, which would be valid for five years.
Of course, you have a choice: You can choose to never leave the country again or be treated like a common criminal.
Anyone comes near my kids with a biometric sensor, I’ll have their head on a stick.
I wonder what the results of the Road Pricing Survey would be if they asked this question:
Would you be happy for the Government to install a tracking device in your car so that they can monitor every move you make in the name of Road Pricing?
It’s a simple question really. I suspect you could narrow the answers down to the following two:
Say farewell to the right to peaceful protest:
Labour officials have banned the grieving families of the Iraq war dead from staging a peaceful protest outside the party’s forthcoming annual conference in Manchester.
Furious members of Military Families Against The War accused the party of ‘censorship’ after they applied to hold a small peace camp near the conference later this month.
But officials on Labour-run Manchester council told them they could not do so for ‘health and safety’ reasons.
It is bad enough that we are not allowed to protest outside the seat of our democracy. My advice to the members of Military Families Against The War is to go ahead and hold your protest anyway. There will be plenty of TV cameras outside the conference.
Did our forefathers really fight in two world wars so that we would have to put up with this shit?
UPDATE: Military Families Against The War are going ahead with their protest. They are asking people to email Manchester City Council and have kindly provided an easy to use web page for this very purpose. Please go and help them out.
UPDATE 2: For the record, I sent them the following:
I would like to urge you to reconsider your ban against Military Families Against the War from holding a Peace Camp in Albert Square.
We still have the right to peaceful protest in this country and using a ‘health and safety argument to prevent such a protest is lame in the extreme.
I am not affiliated with the group, but I am no longer willing to sit back and watch our democratic rights be dismissed in such an underhanded manner.
This is not a Stalinist State. Yet.
A broken identity can be costly:
The public will be forced to fork out for a costly replacement if the biometric chip in their future passport or ID card breaks down, the government has admitted.
In response to a written parliamentary question about footing the bill for damaged chips, Home Office minister Andy Burnham said that in many cases passport holders or ID card holders will have to pay.
I want to know exactly how resilient these biometeric chips are. Will they withstand a full cycle in the washing machine? How long will they survive in my wallet, which has managed to destroy a fair few bank cards in its time? Stuck in a handbag next to a mobile phone?
If the Government start passing out substandard chips that don’t survive the rigours of everyday life, then why should we have to pay the price?
The odious piece of powermongering that is the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill must be killed off… stone dead… right now.
Hiding behind this rather dull title is possibly the most dangerous legislation that our power hungry masters have ever tried to enact (and boy have they enacted a few):
The boringly-named Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill is in fact a very dangerous piece of legislation. It grants any minister the ability to amend, replace, or repeal existing legislation. The frightening thing is this: they would be able to make major changes to the law without Parliament being able to examine it properly, taking away the ability of Parliament to meaningfully represent the citizens of this country.
Just think about that for a second. This gives the likes of Charles Clarke and Gordon Brown almost free reign to arbitrarily change the laws of this land without having to justify themselves to anyone. Not Parliament and certainly not you or me.
No half-arsed “ID card style” compromises this time. We must get rid of this before El Gordo makes it illegal to blog about any member or policy of the Labour Party (you think he wouldn’t given half a chance?)
I’m pissed off. Something I thought was a constant in my life is no longer. I refer to that great British delicacy, the Heinz Baked Bean. I don’t eat them that often, so when I tasted them tonight for the first time in months, I was shocked. My inner child cried out for vengeance. I had to dig in the bin to find the empty tin, just to make sure it said Heinz on the front.
The bastards have only gone and changed their recipe. All thanks to the Nanny State Food Police.
Responding to health concerns, Heinz has already reduced sugar levels in its baked beans to 4.8g per 100g, compared to Branston’s 5.9g per 100g.
I mean, what is the point of living if you can’t get a decent tin of beans any more.
Bastards!
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