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UK Gov't Creating Secret Mega Database On Citizens Without Informing Parliament (theregister.co.uk)

Alexander J Martin, reporting for The Register: The Home Office is secretly creating a centralised database on the good folk of Britain without presenting the capability increases to the public or subjecting them to Parliamentary scrutiny. The Register can reveal the project, which was described as simply a "replatforming" of the department's aging IT infrastructure, has already begun to roll out, with the "first wave" of changes being delivered in what it is calling the Technology Platforms for Tomorrow (TPT) programme. TPT will lay the foundations for this mega database by ushering in "core infrastructure, compute platforms and Live Service capability" changes, primarily using Hadoop, the open source software framework for centralising databases and allowing batch queries and analyses to be run across them in bulk.

10 of 70 comments (clear)

  1. worry not by nimbius · · Score: 4, Funny

    Speaking as a representative from the Home Office, I can assure you as citizenry there is nothing to be alarmed about. We've compiled this database to detect certain abberant behavior in britons that may indicate nefarious intent similar to a terrorist. Among these behaviors:
    1. Milk applied before the tea, such as to scald it
    2. too much milk in the tea, such as to coddle the weak gullet of a terrorist.
    3. Milk and lemon in the tea, a sure sign of a deviant madman hellbent on the destruction of our great nation
    4. Enjoying, or not, marmite. we havent decided ourselves (janice in signals detection says it works on pizza too?)
    5. Questioning, mentioning, or affording any opinion on the Faulkand Islands. You know who you are violet ortiz born 6/3/1970 and wed to mister lonnie harvey of 2592 dane st who also happens to have a half eaten bottle of vegemite from holiday last year in Perth. We keep those sheep very well fed thank you kindly now back to your Reddit and dont leave that crisp wrapper on the train like last time, you caused an awful lot of anxiety for that polish maid sitting behind you.

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
  2. THIS IS JUST WRONG! by Thud457 · · Score: 3, Informative

    WTF UKGOV?!!!

    YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO SPY ON YOUR CITIZENS!

    The way it is SUPPOSED to work is that all five eyes countries spy on each others' citizens, then share their data with each other.
    So this should be America spying on UK citizens.
    Or Australia.
    Or New Zealand.
    Or sorry, Canada.

    --

    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

    1. Re:THIS IS JUST WRONG! by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      This data isn't gathered through spying, it's stuff that citizens have to give the government like tax information, voter registration, employment data, car ownership data...

      It's just standard abuse of databases, with zero regard for privacy or safety. Just wait until it gets hacked.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  3. Re:The UK, Providing Dystopian Visions Everywhere by fustakrakich · · Score: 2

    Does anyone know what temperature paper burns at?

    911 degrees Fahrenheit

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  4. Re:the Queen's subjects by starless · · Score: 4, Informative

    There's no such thing as a British citizen. The correct term is SUBJECT.

    Nonsense.
    I'm a British citizen, not a subject.
    If you don't believe me, take a look at my passport and see what it says there.

  5. Initially Misread as "Manga" Database by Diss+Champ · · Score: 3, Funny

    The story would have been a lot more interesting.

  6. Re:the Queen's subjects by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 2

    The Queen'd tell you to learn English, for a start.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  7. Re:the Queen's subjects by starless · · Score: 2

    And also;
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    On 1 January 1983, upon the coming into force of the British Nationality Act 1981, every citizen of the United Kingdom and colonies became either a British citizen, British Dependent Territories citizen or British Overseas citizen.

    Use of the term British subject was discontinued for all persons who fell into these categories, or who had a national citizenship of any other Commonwealth country. /quote.

  8. Re:The UK, Providing Dystopian Visions Everywhere by pr0nbot · · Score: 2

    I wonder if this is one of the costs of imperialism/multiculturalism. You import all manner of grievances, festering in segregated communities with which you have no informal ties through which you might do information gathering. All of a sudden, rather than dealing with the customary crimes you're dealing with invisible, existential threats from within your borders. You don't know how to build intelligence networks in the ghettos -- you don't know their customs, their tongues, their codes, and so whom you can trust -- and so instead you begin to watch everyone.

    I could imagine that in monocultures, problems are identified much sooner and dealt with more subtly. Those with a history of repression will of course have their political police, but does Iceland (say) have a paranoid secret service?

  9. Crazy culture by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 2

    Didn't talk of secret government databases on people used to be reserved for people who talked to themselves on buses? Interesting to see this going mainstream.