Privacy Campaigners give thumbs up to new documentary

November 5, 2009 by yorkshireno2id

Privacy campaigns from the Sheffield group of NO2ID are giving their thumbs up to a new feature documentary Erasing David which is being premiered as part of the Doc/Fest Sheffield Film Festival this week. The film follows the life of filmmaker David Bond, who upon receiving a letter from HMRC informing him that his daughter’s details were amongst the 25 million lost by the child benefit office, embarks on a journey to discover just how much information is held about him by government and private companies. David soon discovers some alarming truths about what the government and private companies already know about ordinary citizens. He meets people who have been caught in the crossfire of the database state and have had their lives shattered.

James Elsdon-Baker North of England co-ordinator for NO2ID said:

“This film is important as it gives us a window through which we can reflect upon type of society we are creating. Sadly things are going to get a lot worse if the National Identity Scheme is allowed to continue. Even more data will be collected and then shared around Whitehall. We won’t be putting our thumbs up any time soon to have our prints taken, but we will certainly be putting them up in support of this film.”

Producer Ashley Jones said:

“We are very proud to have te endorsement of NO2ID for our film, Erasing David, and are proud to be working with their networks to get the film out there over the coming months ahead of a screening on Channel 4 in 2010. We set out to make an engaging documentary that would appeal to a mass audience who in the past may have struggled to connect with the issue of privacy. The mountain of data being accumulated and centralised by the government is epic in scope and relevant to us all, and, as the film shows, this can be devastating when misapplied. We hope Erasing David is a timely clarion call to those of us interested in guarding our civil liberties in an increasingly invasive digital age.”

Campaigners will greet people on their way into the screening with giant mock ID cards and participating with the film makers in a questions and answers session after the film.

The film will premiere as part of the Sheffield International Documentary Festival at 7.30pm on the 6th November at the Library Theatre, further details about this film and the Doc/Fest film festival can be found at www.sheffdocfest.com

To watch the ERASING DAVID trailer visit: www.erasingdavid.com

Government announces Sheffield “home interrogation squad”

October 29, 2009 by graphiclunarkid

The Government announced this week that Sheffield will be home to a new UKBA Service mobile interrogation squad. Based at Vulcan House, Millsands, the team will target those required to have an Identity Card but who cannot attend an interrogation centre in person.

The inquisitorial team will visit people’s homes to perform an “intrusive interview”, which will include taking 3D photographs and finger scans. The taking of retina scans and DNA samples is also allowed for in legislation.

No2ID Sheffield is concerned about the Government’s campaign to coerce vulnerable people onto the National Identity Register. How will the public be able to tell genuine interrogators from fraudsters trying to gain access to their homes and identities? There is also a risk that remote terminals will make it easier for corrupt employees to register fake IDs.

Sheffield No2ID co-ordinator Richard Belbin said, “Those deliberately targeted by this team will have their identities appropriated free of charge, but the Government also plans to sell to the rest of us the ‘privilege’ of being interrogated in our own homes, or places of work. Perhaps they hope such ‘premium services’ will help to meet the estimated £4.5 Bn cost of the scheme. However, in the depths of the worst recession since records began, ID cards stand out as a gratuitous waste of money and liberty. The scheme should be scrapped immediately.”

Don’t be a Guinea Pig – Campaign Launch

October 10, 2009 by yorkshireno2id
Campaigners journey over to Oldham for launch of campaign

Campaigners journey over to Oldham for launch of campaign

Today saw the launch of our new ‘Don’t be a Guinea Pig’ Campaign to warn people in Manchester and the Northwest about the dangers of the ID Scheme. Folk from Yorkshire where out and about in Oldham, Stockport and Rochdale joining forces with local NO2ID supporters to help get the message out to more people then ever.

Stop the ID card Con

October 8, 2009 by yorkshireno2id

guinea-pig
The following two weekends mark the start of our new ‘Stop the ID Con’ campaign. Campaigners from around the region will be heading over to Greater Manchester to warn people not to sign up for a voluntary card. It’s always been the Government’s intention to launch a voluntary scheme, and only make the cards compulsory when a large chunk of the population has signed up to the scheme. Just as Gordon Brown grandstands about ID cards not being compulsory, the IPS has launched a new advertising campaign. The aim of this campaign is to encourage businesses to accept ID cards as a valid form of ID. As more organizations start to recognize ID cards it will become harder and harder to life your life without one. Whilst the scheme will be ‘voluntary’ many people will be conned onto the register, and once on it you can’t get off it.

This Saturday members of Leeds and Bradford groups will be getting the train over to Rochdale to run a stall in the town, members of Sheffield NO2ID will be heading over to hold a stall in Oldham and Selby will be running a stall in Stockport. If you would like to join them then send an email through to yorkshire@no2id.net

Then the following weekend on the 17th we are planning a day of action on Manchester City Centre, this will compose of numerous street stalls and public meeting at 3.30pm in the Friends meeting house on Mount Street. Our National coordinator Phil Booth will be speaking so if you have any questions or want to help get together with other people and plan our joint opposition to the scheme now is the time to do so.

Don't be a guinea-pig — Stop the ID Card Con

Yorkshire pulls together to oppose Manchester rollout

September 14, 2009 by yorkshireno2id

Like you we are back from our Holidays and looking to get stuck into an active session of opposing ID cards. It’s clear that ID cards are being pushed ahead despite the continued opposition. Only this week James Hall head of IPS was claiming ID cards would become the main form of proving age for buying drinks in your local pub, and with some shops starting to ID pensioners don’t think those gray hairs will save you from needing to produce a card!

The scheme is launching in Manchester this Autumn, and we will be doing everything we can to campaign against it. If we can beat it back in Manchester we can stop it spreading. Now more than ever though we do however need your help. If you have been involved in the campaign but drifted away, this pre-election period is a crucial stage in which we can oppose ID cards and protect our liberty.

We have a number of meetings for local groups accross the region, in these meetings we will be planning what we can do to help oppose the scheme’s rollout in Manchester. So check out our events page and get involved!

+ MANCHESTER ALERT – DON’T BE A GUINEA PIG +

The Home Secretary’s summer re-launch of ID cards targeted Manchester as
a “beacon area” for the roll-out of the first cards. Having backed down
from a fight with airport workers and pilots threatening industrial
action over compulsory ID registration, the Home Office is now trying to
solicit volunteers.

Of course, people don’t always read the small print – so we need to
ensure that any ‘volunteers’ realise that registering for a card means
being tagged and tracked for the rest of their lives. And paying for the
privilege of being Whitehall’s guinea pigs.

The fewer that sign up, the easier it should be to scrap the whole scheme.

NO2ID is launching a rolling campaign to alert and inform the people of
Manchester and – as the National Identity Scheme’s net widens – the
North West, starting with a day of action on Saturday 10th October.
NO2ID groups and supporters from around the UK will be heading to
selected locations in Greater Manchester to hold street stalls, leaflet
and spread the word.

The following Saturday, 17th October, we shall be running more street
stalls in central Manchester and holding a public meeting at the Friends
Meeting House in Mount Street. Further activities and events will be
announced in due course.

ID cards to be linked to police records for millions

September 8, 2009 by yorkshireno2id

It has been revealed that Millions of people working in education in health or as volunteers could come under pressure to be fingerprinted and obtain a national ID card.

Research by online IT magazine The Register has uncovered proposals to use ID cards and the national database behind them to support Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks – which are due to be extended to many more categories of people.

From October this year people working in all sort of roles will be compelled to be registered with a new vetting body the Independent Safeguarding Authority, which may eventually keep tabs on around 11 million workers and volunteers at any one time. ‘Enhanced’ CRB checks mean not just criminal records, but police intelligence files containing suspicions, opinions and unsubstantiated allegations, may be used for the purpose.

To make this massive administrative task a manageable one, officials are aiming to use the Home Office’s ID database, which is going ahead. ID records and police intelligence records would end up connected for millions. One of the most frightening predictions of campaigners against ID cards – that the ID *scheme* will be an easy reference to all official files and a key to the most private information about every one of us – could be coming true before a single ID card has
been issued.

Phil Booth, National Coordinator of NO2ID [3] said: ‘This is entirely consistent with the various forms of coercion strategy they’ve been working on to create so-called volunteers for ID cards. ‘Biometrics are part of the search for clean, unique identifiers. But
it’s patently ridiculous given another part of the plan has people registering fingerprints in high street shops.’

Guy Herbert, General Secretary of NO2ID said:

‘Ministers are always quick to point out the ID database itself will not contain criminal records. The covert programme unearthed by The Register shows what a fatuous piece of misdirection that is. If the CRB gets its way, then for millions of people their ID card would be directly LINKED to a detailed police record and a scoring system designed to evaluate their suitability for various jobs.’

ID cards easily electronically forged

August 6, 2009 by yorkshireno2id

Technical expert Adam Laurie has demonstrated copying, cloning and changing details on the biometric visa cards being issued by the government to foreign nationals – the same technology that is to be used for the UK ID scheme.

This is just the latest in a series of ‘hacking’ exercises showing the technical insecurity of the Identity and Passport Service’s products. Officials have repeatedly declared them impossible, despite clear evidence and open demonstrations for the press. The very information most useful to identity thieves and fraudsters is made more vulnerable by using microchips *designed* to broadcast your personal details for official convenience.

NO2ID today condemned the Home Office for knowingly making ‘ID theft’ asier, ignoring dangerous vulnerabilities in the ID card as it pursues its Real goal – the universal population register that would give officials unprecedented control of our lives, and make the Home Office king in
Whitehall.

Phil Booth, National Coordinator of NO2ID said:

‘This shows up the big con. The Home Office doesn’t really care about ‘ID theft’, or it wouldn’t be pushing technology that any competent crook can subvert.

‘The ID-obsessed officials are putting our personal information at risk in their scramble to control it. They want to build a population register – the database for which the card is just a Trojan horse. It doesn’t matter how shoddy the card itself is, or what it costs the public.’

The ID con: Manchester Says No

July 30, 2009 by yorkshireno2id

As the Home Secretary attempted yet another relaunch of the hated National Identity Scheme in Manchester today, NO2ID announces its launching a major new information campaign this autumn, as people in Manchester and the North-West prepare to become the guinea-pigs in the Government’s first attempt at a regional rollout of the National Identity Scheme anywhere in the UK.

The populations of so-called ‘Beacon Areas’ in the North-West, including Manchester, will be encouraged to register voluntarily on the scheme, which will require them to hand over their fingerprints and consent to having their personal data held on the National Identity Database for life.
In response to the Government’s action, NO2ID has pledged to work with the local media, trade unions, students’ organisations, community groups, Manchester City Councillors and MPs to explain exactly what
this could mean for the lives, families and jobs of the population of Manchester and beyond.

At the beginning of October, NO2ID will be holding a series of events, meetings and protests in the city, aiming to raise awareness and allow the people of the North-West a voice in defending their way of life
from this intrusive scheme.

In the coming weeks a new website will be publicising all aspects of the campaign, encouraging individuals, groups and communities to come together and plan their contribution.

Dave Page, NO2ID North-West regional co-ordinator, said:

‘What they’re keeping quiet is that once you are on that database, you can never come off it. From the moment you’re registered you’ll have to tell the authorities of any change in your circumstances for the
rest of your life – and pay whatever fees they ask for the ’service’. You’ll never know who’s looking at your details. It won’t protect our safety. It won’t be convenient – except for
Whitehall. This scheme is an expensive and dangerous con. The people
of Manchester aren’t stupid, Sir Humphrey.’

Phil Booth, National Co-ordinator for NO2ID, said:

‘People in the North West are smart enough to read the small print. Once you’re on the ID database you’ll never be free – you’ll be locked in for life. Inform yourself, inform others. Don’t be a guinea-pig.
Together we can beat this insidious scheme.’

An Opportunity to halt the ID Scheme

July 6, 2009 by yorkshireno2id

There have been rumours that the new Home Secretary Alan Johnson is “reviewing the ID card” programme. They have been denied, but there is undoubtedly a change of heart among many back bench Labour MPs. In the last three months several new ones have said openly – against party policy – that the project should be cancelled. Now they have a chance to show they are serious. There is a chance to halt it, at least temporarily. A delay at this stage should go a long way to killing the scheme. The Identity Cards Act 2006 was never a complete system. It left vast amounts about the card, and the database, enrolment and enforcement, to be determined in regulations. The first batch of those regulations has appeared and MPs will be able to vote against them at a debate scheduled for July. Together they are far longer than the act itself, and there are numerous points of revealing detail and sheer bad drafting which give scope for legal and political attack. If the regulations are not approved by parliament the whole scheme will be stalled. Please write to your MP now, *particularly if you have a Labour MP* and ask them to vote against the new statutory instruments that would allow the ID scheme to begin.

It is easy to contact your MP via http://www.writetothem.com/

Those key regulations are:

The Identity Cards Act 2006 (Application and Issue of ID Card and
Notification of Changes) Regulations 2009

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2009/draft/ukdsi_9780111480427_en_1

[The detail that you will have to give to the Home Office about
yourself, much much more than the "basic identifying information"
ministers keep referring to.]

The Identity Cards Act 2006 (Prescribed Information) Regulations 2009

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2009/draft/ukdsi_9780111480434_en_1

[What will be kept on the cards - but not yet anything about the
national identity register database and how it might work.]

The Identity Cards Act 2006 (Designation) Order 2009

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2009/draft/ukdsi_9780111479056_en_1

[The first of potentially many such. Provides for some people to be
forced onto the system because joining will be a condition of *applying*
for another official document that they need.]

The Identity Cards Act 2006 (Fees) Regulations 2009

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2009/draft/ukdsi_9780111479070_en_1

The Identity Cards Act 2006 (Information and Code of Practice on
Penalties) Order 2009

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2009/draft/ukdsi_9780111479087_en_1

[The unfair rules that will be used to punish non-compliance.]

The Identity Cards Act 2006 (Provision of Information without Consent)
Regulations 2009

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2009/draft/ukdsi_9780111479063_en_1

[Sets out who the information may be passed to once the IPS has it.
Audit trail information will go to: police, intelligence services, and
SOCA, *and to anyone else they authorise* - so we are immediately beyond
government promise - plus HMRC, who can't however authorise it to be
given to third parties. Further, non-audit trail information - such as
document numbers, names and addresses, signatures and fingerprints,
quite enough to be keys for other searches or massive identity fraud -
may be provided to the Home Office and MoJ, DWP, DoT and FCO. Records of
what information has been given to whom and why may be destroyed after
12 months or less.]

The Immigration (Biometric Registration) (Amendment) Regulations 2009

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2009/uksi_20090819_en_1

[Expands the 'ID cards for foreigners' system vastly by extending it to
more categories of people (for example, spouses of British citizens,
visiting artists and academics) who are only being treated as a threat
in order to justify ID cards for all.]

ID card scheme limps on

July 1, 2009 by yorkshireno2id

Contrary to many headlines his morning the ID card scheme is still alive (albeit limping on like a sick and lame animal). The compulsory trials have now been dropped, the Home Secetary has stated this was a compulsory aspect, yet back in early June Sir James Hall Chief Executive of IPS the department running the scheme was trying to claim the scheme was already voluntary! Something we rightly pointed out was plain nonsense and misleading. That just goes to show how much spin these senior unelected civil servants are prepared to put on the scheme in order to protect their little empires.

Writing in the Gurdian today Henry Porter is spot on when he describes Johnson’s move as an attempt to avoid a messy dispute with the Pilot’s union BALPA over now ditched plans to issue the cards to their members. All credit has to also go to a BBC article that reports on David Davis calling the scheme an embarrassment that sums up the current position with a good degree of accuracy.

The Database that will track and store your details is here to stay people, and what is worse the Government is going ahead with plans to link Passports to the database. This means the scheme is voluntary only in so far as you don’t want to leave the country!

Young people are also being duped into thinking getting a voluntary card will make it easier to prove their age and buy restricted goods. Don’t be fooled! Rather than spending £30 on the card, another £30 to have your biometrics captured you could get a widely recognised (including by Police and Trading Standards) proof-of-age card for as little as £10! So why do we need the expensive ID card scheme that will track every time we need to use the card and tie us into a lifetime of having to abide by a regime of fines and punishments if we fail to keep our details up to date?

It’s not all doom and gloom though! The scrapping of the trial is certinaly good news. What is clear is that there is no longer the political momentum to carry this project on. One last push by anti-ID card campaigners may see this scheme scrapped for good. One thing is clear we won’t be resting until a repeal bill is passed through parliament.