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Rights Groups Speak Out Against Phorm, UK Comm. Database
MJackson writes "The Open Rights Group (ORG) has issued a public letter to the Chief Privacy Officers (or the nearest equivalent) for seven of the world's largest website giants (including Microsoft and Google), asking them to boycott Phorm. The controversial Phorm system works with broadband ISPs to monitor what websites you visit for use in targeted advertising campaigns. Meanwhile, the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust has issued a new report slamming the UK government's plans for a Communications Database. This would be designed to intercept and log every UK ISP user's e-mail headers, website accesses and telephone history. The report warns that the public are often, 'neither served nor protected by the increasingly complex and intrusive holdings of personal information invading every aspect of our lives.'"
If, for instance, your mommy says you are special; but nobody else does, your specialness isn't "controversial" in any useful sense, it's just a settled matter with a contrarian outlier. In this case, the only people who think Phorm is even remotely a good idea are A)Phorm and B)ISPs who Phorm has promised gobs of money. That isn't "controversy", it is a handful of money-grubbing special interests attempting to screw everybody else. To dignify Phorm as "controversial" is far more than it deserves.
Links to the Rowntree report: executive summary, and the full report. (Both in PDF format). It's worth mentioning that their report doesn't particularly single out the communications database. They assessed 46 databases across all the major UK government departments. They found that at least one quarter "are almost certainly illegal under human rights or data protection law", and that these "should be scrapped or substantially redesigned", while over "half have significant problems with privacy or effectiveness and could fall foul of a legal challenge". Less than 15% were believed to be "effective, proportionate and necessary". They had some equally damning things to say about the cost of IT projects in the public sector, and the high failure rate of the projects (only 30% succeed).
'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow
Freedom won.
Well, one version of freedom won. The freedom that says you need the Government to "protect" you from every conceivable source of harm, ranging from fatty foods to cigarettes to automobile accidents to firearms. The sheep can't possibly be trusted to assume responsibility for their own actions/choices so we need to curtail those choices for the public good.
When will people realize that real freedom is the freedom to do whatever the hell you want, provided that it isn't harming your neighbor?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
It is interesting that the government seems to think that whilst the population should be monitored as closely as possible when it comes to their own activities they clearly take the exact opposite view and fight tooth and nail to keep their own details secret. They also appear to want to take this inbalance even further since according to a government minister defending the government from this report on the radio this morning...
They appear to think they can also completely ignore the law if it suits the interests of Wacky Jacky and the rest of them.
Personally I can see the benefit of centralising government databases, done correctly it should save money and allow the government to work more efficiently which can only be a good thing. However, and it is a big however, I would only support the creation of these central databases based on the following ground rules being enforced:
1. I want to be able see every single piece of data the government is holding on me myself and I want an audit log showing me who has accessed this data and a reason as to why they had done so.
2. In tandem with the above I would want a swift and effective system to impartially consider any complaints I might have that my data was not being accessed for a good reason and the ability to correct any incorrect data I came across and I would require the impartial authority to actually be impartial and have the power to block access and effectively punish those responsible if they agree people have abused their priviledge of access to my data.
3. I would want the ability to remove my data completely from government systems should I choose to do so and not suffer any discriminatory restrictions to my access of government facilities if I chose to do so. Obviously I'd accept things may take them a bit longer to process without access to the electronic data but I wouldn't want to, for example, lose my driving licence.
4. I would have to trust the government and believe that they held themselves to the rule of law and did not undertake nefarious and underhand schemes to abuse my data and to be honest about their intentions.
Sadly I don't think the circumstances will ever be met which would allow the above to happen, particulary points 3 and 4 and especially not under the current morally bankrupt bunch of incompetents.