The state's latest plan to watch us makes every other imminent intrusion seem limited. Next month's Queen's speech will contain a brief reference to an innocuous-sounding communications data bill. But what this means is the development of a centralised database that will track, in real time, every call we make, every website we visit, and every text and email we send. That information will then be stored and analysed - perhaps for decades. It will mean the end of privacy as we know it.

In the name of the fight against crime, and the fight against terror, we are all to be monitored as if we could be suspects. Computers will analyse our behaviour for signs of deviance. The minute we become of interest to anyone in authority - perhaps because we take part in a demonstration, have an argument with a security guard at an airport, spend too long on a website, or are witness to a crime - the police or the security services will be able to dip into our records and construct a near-complete pattern of our lives.

The shocking element to the new plan is that the authorities want their own database only because they find the current limitations frustrating. Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act rules, the 700 or so bodies already licensed to watch us must make a certified request to phone or internet firms for individual records. More than 500,000 such requests were made last year. But the companies are reluctant to hang on to the data, and the security services would find a single, accessible database so much more convenient.

...Read full article

Every call you make, every e-mail you send, every website you visit - I’ll be watching you.

That is the hope of Sir David Pepper who, as the director of GCHQ, the government’s secret eavesdropping agency in Cheltenham, is plotting the biggest surveillance system ever created in Britain.

From his office in the agency’s famous doughnut building, Pepper is masterminding an innocent-sounding project called the Interception Modernisation Programme.

The scope of the project, classified top secret, is said by officials to be so vast that it will dwarf the estimated £5 billion ministers have set aside for the identity cards programme. It is intended to fight terrorism and crime. Civil liberties groups, however, say it poses an unprecedented intrusion into ordinary citizens’ lives.

Aimed at placing a live tap on every electronic communication in Britain, it will dwarf other big brother surveillance projects such as the number plate recognition system and the spread of CCTV.

Pepper and his opposite number at MI6, Sir John Scarlett, are facing opposition from mandarins in the Treasury and Cabinet Office who fear both its cost and ethical implications.

The spy bosses say a central database is essential to capture the array of communications between terrorists planning to attack Britain. Draft e-mails, chatroom discussions and internet browsing on encrypted jihadist websites are the preferred forums for Al-Qaeda cells to plan their attacks, they say. However, other officials and many in the business and academic community are wary.

A spokesman for the information commissioner, Richard Thomas, said yesterday that this summer he had called for a public debate about government proposals for the state to retain people’s internet and phone records.

The commissioner warned that it is likely that such a scheme would be a step too far for the British way of life. Proposals that threaten such intrusion into people’s lives must be properly debated, the spokesman said.

Despite the lack of public debate, Pepper’s officials have been aggressively marketing his plans in a round of White-hall briefings over the past few weeks.

But there are mounting concerns at the Treasury about the costs of Pepper’s project. According to Richard Clayton, a security expert at Cambridge University, the system will require the insertion of “thousands” of black box probes into the country’s computer and telephone networks.

Known as Deep Packet Inspection equipment, these probes will “steal” the data, analyse and decode the information and then route it direct to a government-run database.

No one yet knows exactly how to ensure police and intelligence agencies do not abuse their access to the database.

Happy-snappers unite! We need as many people as possible to take photos of stuff that embodies the database state, and the UK’s world-famous surveillance society.

On 11 October, No2ID and the Open Rights Group will make a live collage of the images you’ve taken in a prominent location in London, to celebrate Freedom Not Fear Day 2008.

Freedom not Fear is an international day of action for democracy, free speech, human rights and civil liberties, and events to celebrate these central tenets of a just society will be taking place all over the world.

Here’s how you can help:

1. Spot something that embodies the UK’s wholesale transformation into the surveillance society/database state. Subjects might include your local CCTV camera(s), or fingerprinting equipment in your child’s school library
2. Snap it
3. Upload it to Flickr and tag it “FNFBigPicture” - please use an Attribution Creative Commons license*
4. That’s it!

*We need you to license it this way because we want to give the image to newspapers to run on the day.

BT is about to start further trials of a controversial internet advertising technology. Developed by Phorm, the Webwise system watches what people do online and shows adverts tuned to their interests.

From 30 September, a sample of BT's customers will be invited to "opt in" to a trial of the technology. Those that are invited to take part will see a special webpage appear when they start browsing the web. In a statement BT said customers would be able to opt in, opt out or ask for more information via the pop-up page.

A spokesman for BT said the trial would run for "at least" four weeks and that it hoped 10,000 customers would take part. He said the technical trial would help BT assess whether the Phorm Webwise technology works well in the field.

Earlier trials of the technology suggested that BT would have to commit a lot of resources, potentially 300 servers, to use the system for all customers.

If it goes according to plan it's our expectation that we will roll it out across the entire broadband customer base, said the spokesman. No decision had yet been taken on whether Webwise would be "opt in" when the finished system is rolled out, he added.

The web browsing traffic of those that "opt out" will pass through the Webwise system will not be profiled or copied by it, he added. BT was also working on a separate system that let people opt out at a network level so their traffic avoided Webwise more completely, he said.

Jacqui Smith has unveiled the UK's new identity card.

The credit card-sized plastic cards carried a picture of a bull - in common with other European Union identity cards - as well as five stars drawn from the stars on the official flag of the EU.

The card is to be initially issued to people outside the EU renewing their permission to stay in the UK as students or on the basis of marriage.

Between 50,000 and 60,000 cards, which will initially cost £30 each, will be issued by the end of next March and ministers predict one million a year will be handed out from 2010.

The cards contain the individual's name, their photograph, the card's expiry date and details of how long they can stay in the country.

Other information includes people's date and place of birth, their gender, nationality, and whether they are entitled to benefits.

Biometric data, including copies of all of the person's fingerprints, will be stored on a special security chip.

The card will start to be issued on November 25 to foreign nationals at offices in Croydon, Glasgow, Sheffield, Liverpool, Birmingham and Cardiff.

From next year anyone working in the restricted areas in Britain's airports would need to have an ID card and it will be made generally available to British citizens from 2011. Those cards, which will be voluntary, may look different and display different information but they will enable the holder to travel without a passport around the EU.

The Conservatives reaffirmed the party's commitment to scrapping ID cards if they win the next election, likely in 2010. Shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve said: ID cards are an expensive white elephant that risk making us less - not more safe. It is high time the Government scrapped this ill-fated project.

Suspicious! He got the green light from the scanner! ...Normal people get all hostile over aggressive treatment from border operatives

The US Department of Homeland Security is testing a type of body scanner that seeks out invisible clues that a person might be harbouring criminal intent, such as raised body temperature, pulse and breathing rate.

The system, called MALINTENT, uses a raft of "non-invasive" sensors and imagers to detect such factors remotely - subjects are not hooked up to anything. It also evaluates a person's facial expression to help to gauge whether they could be planning to commit an attack or crime.

The technology, developed by the Human Factors division of Homeland Security's directorate for Science and Technology, would be used at border checkpoints, airports and special events that require security screening.

Unlike current technology which aims to detect devices such as guns or explosives, it focuses on the person who could pose the threat.

The technology, dubbed Future Attribute Screening Technology, or FAST, deploys a range of innovative physiological and behavioural technologies to pick up indications of malintent or the intent or desire to cause harm, according to the DHS.

It would take imaging and sensor technologies to observe physiological changes that might indicate intent to harm, such as skin temperature, pulse, respiration and gestures, said Amy Kudwa, a DHS spokeswoman.

She added it would be capable of distinguishing between someone with a hostile intent and a plane passenger, for example, who was merely stressed about missing a connection.

We're still very early on in this research, but it is looking very promising, John Verrico, a DHS spokesman, told New Scientist. We are running at about 78% accuracy on mal-intent detection, and 80% on deception.

If the sensors pick up anything considered alarming, analysts can decide whether to subject a person to questioning.

City of London Police have decided not to formally investigate BT and Phorm for their allegedly illegal secret ISP-level adware trials, arguing that there was implied consent from customers and it would be a waste of public money.

Officers in London's financial district were handed a dossier of evidence against the two firms by campaigners who protested at BT's annual shareholder meeting at the Barbican in July. Then early in September BT Retail executives were informally questioned by detectives over their covert testing of Phorm's system on tens of thousands of internet connections in 2006 and 2007.

That meeting formed part of the basis of a report to senior officers, who have now decided to drop police interest in the trials, which were revealed by The Register.

In an email to Alex Hanff, the anti-Phorm campaigner who compiled the dossier handed to City of London Police, detective sargeant Barry Murray wrote: The matter will not be investigated by the City of London Police as it has been decided that no Criminal Offence has been committed. One of the main reasons for this decision is the lack of Criminal Intent on behalf of BT and Phorm Inc in relation to the tests. It is also believed that there would have been a level of implied consent from BT's customers in relation to the tests, as the aim was to enhance their products.

Hanff said he was very disappointed with the decision and would be making a complaint.

With terrorists using unsecured WiFi networks to shoot off emails every time they carry out bomb blasts, India is examining a series of measures to  authentication.

India's telecom regulator, TRAI, asked the government to direct all ISPs to instruct their customers to have proper authentication measures so that this facility is not misused.

ET reported earlier this week that the government is examining the possibility of issuing new laws which will make unsecured WiFi connections illegal.

WiFi networking companies may also be asked to limit WiFi signal right down to a defined radius.

Security agencies have asked the government to ask all ISPs to make password protection mandatory for every customer using a WiFi network. This has also been endorsed by the home ministry.

Based on article from thaindian.com

The Orissa government said it would soon ban the use of cell phones in college campuses. We are planning to ban the use of cell phones in classrooms as well as in colleges. There was a high level meeting Tuesday in the state secretariat where we decided to impose the ban, state Higher Education Minister Samir Dey told IANS.

The government announcement follows various instances of students circulating and selling indecent MMS clips of girls and teachers. According to the police, a student was also murdered on the outskirts of Bhubaneshwar in April because he had MMS clippings of a girl he was in love with him.

Hey said: Nobody will be allowed to use mobile phones inside the campus. It will be applicable to all students, teachers and outsiders. Anybody found using it will be fined. We will come out with the guidelines on the amount of fine to be imposed, and how it will be implemented.

The spokesperson of the German Pirate Party saw his house raided after the party published a leaked document which showed that the government uses a homemade trojan to wiretap Skype conversations. In addition, a server from another party member was seized.

The Pirate Party is known for it’s battle against the ever increasing government surveillance on the public. So, when an anonymous whistleblower sent them a internal document which showed that the government went as far as installing trojans on computers, they didn’t hesitate to publish it.

German authorities weren’t too happy about the leak, which might be illegal according to a criminal law specialist, and went after the source.

In a response, Andreas Popp, Chairman of the Bavarian Pirate Party said: A brave person leaks documents to the Pirate Party, to inform the public about a procedure of the Bavarian Government, which is highly likely to violate the constitution. Now this persons is hunted like a criminal. Private rooms are raided, servers get seized.

The trojan in question (German) was able to tap into Skype calls and intercept traffic to encrypted websites.

Every time you travel by road in Britain, your car will be tracked by the police. How many more freedoms will we sacrifice in the name of security?

The police ANPR database, which the Guardian today reveals will retain information from 50 million road journeys a day for five years, is a system that was never sanctioned or debated in parliament and which threatens the freedom of movement, assembly and protest.

Presented simply as a tool to fight crime and terror by the police, it will become one of the cornerstones of the surveillance state, and will give the police far too much power to track, in real time, the movement of people who may be bound for legitimate demonstrations and protest rallies.

Linked with the government's proposals to seize all our communications data to be announced in the Queen's speech this autumn, this move signifies a profound change in our society and an irreversible transfer of power from free individuals to the state.

...Read full article

The government has outlined how a controversial online ad system can be rolled out in the UK.

In response to EU questions about its legality, it said that it was happy Phorm conformed to EU data laws.

But any future deployments of the system must be done with consent and make it easy for people to opt out.

In its statement sent to the EU the government said: Users will be presented with an unavoidable statement about the product and asked to exercise choice about whether to be involved. Users will be able to easily access information on how to change their mind at any point and are free to opt in or out of the scheme.

The UK police are to expand a car surveillance operation that will allow them to record and store details of millions of daily journeys for up to five years, the Guardian has learned.

A national network of roadside cameras will be able to "read" 50m licence plates a day, enabling officers to reconstruct the journeys of motorists.

Police have been encouraged to fully and strategically exploit the database, which is already recording the whereabouts of 10 million drivers a day, during investigations ranging from counter-terrorism to low-level crime.

But it has raised concerns from civil rights campaigners, who question whether the details should be kept for so long, and want clearer guidance on who might have access to the material.

The project relies on automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras to pinpoint the precise time and location of all vehicles on the road. Senior officers had promised the data would be stored for two years. But responding to inquiries under the Freedom of Information Act, the Home Office has admitted the data is now being kept for five years.

Thousands of CCTV cameras across the country have been converted to read ANPR data, capturing people's movements in cars on motorways, main roads, airports and town centres. Local authorities have since adapted their own CCTV systems to capture licence plates on behalf of police, massively expanding the network of available cameras. Mobile cameras have been installed in patrol cars and unmarked vehicles parked by the side of roads. Police helicopters have been equipped with infrared cameras that can read licence plates from 610 metres (2,000ft).

In four months' time, when a nationwide network of cameras is fully operational, the National ANPR Data Centre in Hendon, north London, will record up to 50m licence plates a day.

Officers can access the database to find uninsured cars, locate illegal "duplicate" licence plates and track the movements of criminals. The Acpo adds that the database will deter criminals through increased likelihood of detection.

The director of Privacy International, Simon Davies, said last night the database would give police extraordinary powers of surveillance. This would never be allowed in any other democratic country. This is possibly one of the most valuable reserves of data imaginable.

A UN agency and the US National Security Agency are working on putting together technical standards to define ways to trace original sources of Internet communications to reduce the ability of online users to remain anonymous.

The methods were proposed by the Chinese government.

The groups are operating under the name Q6/17. The meetings are closed to the public, and the entities are not releasing specific documents related to their work.

But their work alone is throwing up red flags to some technologists, especially since Internet users' right to remain anonymous is protected by law in the US and is recognized by international groups such as the Council of Europe.

What's distressing is that it doesn't appear that there's been any real consideration of how this type of capability could be misused, said Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

Though there are legal reasons to uncover Internet users' identities, the methods being drafted by Q6/17 allow for surveillance and monitoring of users. The methods are in line with the Chinese government's oppressive nature and history of quashing detractors and their Internet communications.

iPhone hacker and data-forensics expert Jonathan Zdziarski explained that the popular handset snaps a screenshot of your most recent action -- regardless of whether it's sending a text message, e-mailing or browsing a web page -- in order to cache it. This is purely for aesthetic purposes: When an iPhone user taps the Home button, the window of the application you have open shrinks and disappears. In order to create that shrinking effect, the iPhone snaps a screenshot, Zdziarski said.

The phone presumably deletes the image after you close the application. But anyone who understands data is aware that in most cases, deletion does not permanently remove files from a storage device. Therefore, forensics experts have used this security flaw to gather evidence.

And though the handset only snaps screenshots when users press the Home button, Zdziarski said this is only one way forensics experts collect evidence. Other methods include taking data from the iPhone's keyboard cache, Safari cache, Google Maps lookups and so on. Experts and hackers can also recover deleted photos or e-mails from months ago.

See article from blog.wired.com

Nicolas Sarkozy has ordered a rethink of his government's new police database, which is designed to track people as young as 13 and record details such as the sexual orientation and health records of political candidates and trade unionists.

The president has been forced to backtrack after rebellion in his cabinet and a public outcry in which civil liberties campaigners and lawyers suggested France was being turned into a Big Brother state. The accusations threaten to be particularly damaging to the president, who has closely associated himself with policing and security issues.

The security database, known under the acronym Edvige, goes further than any previous French system, gathering personal information on health and sexual orientation and dropping the minimum age for surveillance from 18 to 13. It would allow security officials to track anyone considered a possible threat to public order, and target anyone who has ever stood for public office, politicians, activists, religious figures, trade unionists and business leaders, or anyone playing a role in economic life. Information on health, illnesses, religion, tax, relationships and friendships would be held.

Lawyer Jean-Marc Fedida told Le Parisien the database opened up the possibility of tracking the entire population of France. The defence minister, Hervé Morin, has condemned the tracking of politicians, and the human rights minister, Rama Yade, urged clarification of the inclusion of details on sexual orientation.

Sarkozy yesterday urged his cabinet not to break ranks and has ordered a government review and decisions to protect liberties.

The government could drop the details on sexual orientation and health, but the president is unlikely to relent on tracking children over 13. Youth crime and delinquency and unrest on poor estates are key issues for the president.

This'll hurt me more than it hurts you Jenkins

That's right Mr Chips! ...Especially when I tell 'em you're a paedo!

All adults who work or volunteer with children must have abuse allegations made against them investigated by council officers and kept on file until they retire, even if they are totally groundless.

Local authorities around the country are setting up databases to hold records of accusations made about anyone from teachers and doctors to Scout leaders and private tutors.

They are employing staff just to look into the claims - which can be made anonymously - who are required to contact police, social services or the adult's employer and then keep track of the case.

Details of the allegation will be kept on the accused's personnel file until they retire so they can be seen by potential employers, and in a reversal of the basic tenet of English law they will only be deemed innocent if they can prove it.

It comes on top of the new vetting system being implemented for everyone who works with under-16s, the Independent Safeguarding Authority, which will lead to 11.3 million adults having their backgrounds checked.

Professor Frank Furedi, a sociologist at the University of Kent, said: Those who are accused may become the lifetime victims of these allegations. It then creates an incentive to make those sorts of accusations by people who know it can affect someone's career. This will play into the hands of those who believe there is no smoke without fire.

Following the Bichard inquiry into the murders - which called for the creation of the new nationwide vetting body - the Government published guidance which told local authorities to do more to investigate allegations of harm of children. Since then they have been recruiting Local Authority Designated Officers whose job it is to record and monitor allegations of abuse.

They must investigate any claim that an adult who works with children - whether self-employed, business staff, volunteers or public sector employees - may have harmed a child or committed a crime against them.

The LADOs have to tell the employee's manager about the allegation, as well as the complainant's parents, and decide if police or social services should get involved.

They track the claim to ensure it is resolved, and record whether it has led to disciplinary action, dismissal or a criminal prosecution.

Councils are told to keep a "comprehensive" summary of the allegations, which should be given to the accused as well as kept in a person's confidential personnel file... at least until the person reaches normal retirement age.

Definitions make it difficult for an employee to remove all suspicion. The guidance states that unsubstantiated does not imply guilt or innocence, just a lack of evidence, while for a claim to be classified unfounded or malicious the council must have evidence to disprove the allegation.

Germany's Federal Office for Information Security says that Google's new browser Chrome should not be used for surfing the Internet.

The problem, according to a translation from Blogoscoped, is that joined with email and search, Chrome gives Google too much data about its users.

Based on article from theregister.co.uk

In telling the world it will anonymize user IPs after only nine months, Google has appeased EU regulators. At least in part. But it looks like Mountain View's new policy is just another example of Google Privacy Theatre.

After nine months, the company has confirmed with The Reg, Google will change some of the bits in the user IPs stored in its server logs. But as the plan stands now, it will leave cookie data alone.

This means the missing bits are easily retrieved.

More than a year ago, the company said it would "anonymize" its server logs after eighteen months. And sometime between March and July, it actually put this plan into action. In this case, anonymize meant change some of the bits in the IP address in the logs as well as change the cookie information. Google now says it erases exactly eight bits from a user's IP, but it has yet to explain what it actually does to the cookie data.

After nine months, we will change some of the bits in the IP address in the logs, the company says: After 18 months we remove the last eight bits in the IP address and change the cookie information...It is difficult to guarantee complete anonymization, but we believe these changes will make it very unlikely users could be identified.

But as CNet points out, if your cookie data remains intact, restoring the full IP address is trivial. Google may erase some IP bits on your nine-month-old search queries, but those bits will remain intact on your newer queries - and both sets of queries will carry the same cookie info.

ie Google search data is not really anonymised until 9 months after users clear their cookies. And few users are likely to clear their cookies, ever.

Council staff have been ordered to stop and quiz any adults found walking in Telford Town Park without a child.

Anyone who wants to go to the park but is not accompanied by at least one youngster will have to explain why they are there.

Telford campaigners battling to retain full public access to the park today branded the policy draconian and authoritarian madness but the council defended the policy, claiming it had a responsibility to protect the vulnerable.

The policy came to light after two environmental campaigners dressed as penguins were thrown out of the park last month when caught handing out leaflets on climate change.

Telford & Wrekin Council said Rachel Whittaker and Neil Donaldson of the Wrekin Stop War pressure group were ejected because they had not undergone Criminal Records Bureau checks or risk assessments before entering the park.

David Ottley, Telford & Wrekin’s sports and oppression manager, said in a letter seen by the Shropshire Star: Our Town Park staff approach adults that are not associated with any children in the Town Park and request the reason for them being there. In particular, this applies to those areas where children or more vulnerable groups gather, such as play facilities and the entrances to play areas. This is a child safety precautionary measure which members of staff will continue to undertake as and when necessary.

Former childcare social worker John Evans said: It is authoritarian madness which can only be based on ignorance. It appears that the council wants to use child protection as a cover for anything they don’t like taking place in the park, like the campaign against global warming by those two people who were handing out leaflets. It is absurd, it is insulting and what’s more it is dangerous as it panics people about the dangers their children face.

Councillor Denis Allen, cabinet member for community services, said: Our staff are asked to approach adults without children in areas where children gather such as play areas, using their own judgement and discretion.

Comment: Telford Bulldozer through their Park Policy

11th September 2008, thanks to David

According to someone who lives in the area:

This is a little deeper than you know. The Telford Town Park was recently almost built over under first a labour administration and under the first few months of this Conservative administration. A gentlemen  went out into the park to leaflet people to let them know what was going on. He led a campaign that was politically embarrassing to the council and its authorities and they confiscated the leaflets and stopped him handing them out.

He demanded an apology and an explanation.

When the council were pressed for a reason why they took this action, after many, many attempts to get a reply, the officers came up with this "policy" as the reason. It's junk made up after the fact to justify what was in effect an attempt to silence somebody who didn't agree with their development plans.

Now the same guy raised and won a parish referendum. It made enough fuss and garnered enough support, with others, to cause the council to rethink the policy. Though the Park is not certain to be saved in its entirety the position is now much more secure.

When the two environmental protesters came into the Park dressed as Penguins, the council were stuck with their recently made up policy and enforced it. So earning themselves a rebuke from the Home Office as well.