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!"

Comments

Only those who have something to hide need fear

[BrentRJones]

And we ALL have many things to hide.

Abuse of the info will happen, so let it never be allowed, anywhere!

"I have a right to buy those, but please officer don't tell my boss or my wife or my kids!"

Re:Only those who have something to hide need fear

[iainl]

Actually, I'd put it more cynically.

Only those who honestly believe that this Government could organise an IT project in a datacenter need fear. The insane rantings of Blair and his Home Secretary Of The Month would be pretty damn terrifying, if I ever thought they will manage to build it and make it work. But there's very little evidence they will suddenly develop this ability.

Blair likes gigantic IT projects because they sound shiny and tough, and send taxpayers' money to Crapita by the billion. At which point a nice big chunk goes straight into Labour Party coffers. There's no real expectation that they'll need to do any real _work_ to continue being funded, thank God.

Re:Only those who have something to hide need fear

[clickclickdrone]

There was a story in todays UK press about some poor guy who has the CSA (govt department that tries to make fathers pay for their kids - laudable enough if it weren't for them being idiots and about to be shut down) taking GBP300 out of his pay packet each month. Some woman he has never heard of gave them his name and DOB and now he's GBP1300 worse off pending a DNA test (with a six month lead time) to prove he's not the father. This is the governments quality data in action. Just to add insult to injury the CSA told his partner he'd refused to have the test. OK, the lady that supplied the original data may be a crook/grudge bearer but either way, this shows how hard and time consuming it is to prove the errors in something the government believe to be true. Once the Big Database is up and running, it's going to be a lot worse.
It wouldn't surprise me to see people being locked up because the system thinks they're escaped crims or terrorists because they have a similar name. OK, you get out again in a few months but try rebuilding yor life/career after that and keep smiling.

Terrorists

[KiloByte]

And who's guilty of this all?

Terrorists!

And I do mean it. They're bad, bad folks who use scare tactics and incite the fear of getting blown up to control the population into obeying their demands.

Yeah, that's right. Your beloved government fills all the requirements for the word "terrorists". Just like the other side of the pond.

Re:Terrorists

[oldave]

Y'know what's really so bad about all this? It's exactly what the terrorists want. They've got the masses so scared that they'll go along with anything under the guise of "protection from terrorists."

And no, government is no better than the idiots scrabbling around in caves hiding out. Both use fear to get what they want.

I smell FUD

[Daevid]

"The bookstore would know you had an outstanding parking ticket" - how and why? The current bank card we use in a bookshop links to all our bank details but a bookshop cannot access them - no system would let retail outlets interrogate a database for that information or any other info that didn't directly refer to them - that would be a serious design flaw and would never be accepted.

You should worry about bad bookeeping

[gelfling]

I myself am living through the hell of a family member's minor criminal infraction being repeatedly mishandled and miscoded by the 2 courts and 3 police departments that have some jurisdiction. Now on a daily basis there are cops at my house with one kind of arrest warrant or another for a charge that was dropped months ago.

So yeah let's give the cops more power and more data to peer into and let's give them more of an excuse to wave a piece of paper in my face and tell me "I don't care what you say, this piece of paper says I'm right and you're going to jail.." Yeah let's do that.

Tin foil hat brigade?

[www.sorehands.com]

When I first heard about the 9/11 attacks, I thought "Was this a CIA plan to get a law passed to elimnate all are civil right?" Of couse not, but then they passed the Patriot act. Only terrorists and criminals would have anything to hide, only a terrorist would say, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Re:Tuesday morning sarcasm

[IAmTheDave]

What can I say? Information wants to be free.

I know you're being sarcastic, but it's not information being free - it's information being collected to control the masses - thus being a complete solution for the removal of freedoms.

A total surveillance society is a mere 10-20 years away. Every traffic light I approach I am taped. My face is scanned every time I go to a baseball game. The SCOTUS already upheld that I do indeed have to provide ID to a police officer even if I am not suspected of any wrong doing, at their whim.

Biometrics are the rage. Biometrics and RFID will be on my passport, in my license. The REAL ID act officially creates a national ID in the US. And so on...

While the US is behind the UK in terms of true overall survellance, it's not that far. 20 years from now, when facial recognition is perfected - or some new technology that can ready our DNA from a small distance exists - you won't need customer loyalty cards anymore.

And people will accept it all - because it will all happen slowly, over time, and add seeming convenience to everything. Why carry an ID or a credit card? The police car will instantly recognize you, know exactly where you've been in public in the past few days, weeks, months... Everywhere your car travels, RFID tags or your cell phone will give away your location and be recorded.

See, aside from the DNA sniffer... all of this is reality now. 1984 was a little ambitious - we needed a few more years to totally accept living in a police state, but that's because there was no MySpace back then to distract us from the realities of government total awareness.

Yeah, lable me a tin foil hat person, but I'm going to hold out as long as I can - no EZPass, no customer loyalty cards, a new non-RFID passport, etc., etc. I may go down, but not without some degree of a fight.

This has all the hallmarks of.........

[mormop]

The oft used trick in the UK for getting the population to swallow whatever crap the government wants to hurl their way, i.e.

1) Announce insanely over the top version of whatever it is you want to do

2) Sit back while the population freaks out for a while and make a token defence of it

3) Back off to the point you originally intended and watch the population sigh in relief your "capitulation" in the face of their protests.

Generally, if there's one thing to realise about New Labour it's that things don't leak from a source close to anyone in the government unless there's an agenda behind it.

Re:Tuesday morning sarcasm

[TobascoKid]

Let people know your country's moving into fascism.

And then be shocked to discover that most of your countrymen think moving into fascism is a good idea. At best, they will say that they do not support fascism - unfortuantly what they do support will look and act like fascism - just without the historical baggage associated with the term.

Instead of jumping right in organizing a rebellion (which, let's face it, is a lot of hard work and unlikely to succeed, at least in the the short to medium term), it's a lot easier to see if leaving the country is an option (assuming you can find somwhere on the planet to go) and if it is an option, take it.