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.

The French populace is raising its collective voice in opposition to an arbitrary government decree establishing a national database that many of its critics view as excessively intrusive and ripe for oppressive authoritarian abuse.

Announced in an order revealed July 1st, the 'Edvige' database would contain data about French citizens 13 years of age and older who are active in politics or labor unions, have significant institutional, economic, social or religious roles, or who are considered by the authorities - without probable cause for suspicion - to be likely to breach public order.

Information collected, correlated and analysed could include names and addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, physical appearance (and likely biometrics too), behavioural traits, financial and tax records, plus details about other people who have personal ties to the individual. Critics say the data could extend to ethnic origins and sexual preferences.

Earlier this week, the opposition politician Francois Bayrou said, With just a few clicks of the mouse, any government official or civil servant will have access to intimate data.

Diverse constituencies of French citizens including magistrates' bodies, labor unions, gay rights groups and defenders of human rights and civil liberties have objected that Edvige appears intended to enable the government to intrude excessively on its citizens' privacy.

Michel Pezet, a lawyer and a former member of a French electronic privacy body, wrote: There is nothing in the decree that sets limits or a framework. Whether the database is used with or without moderation depends only on orders from up high.

The Sarkozy government claims the Edvige database would merely centralise information that is already being gathered and retained by separate public security organisations that have recently been merged together.

An online petition calling for the government to abandon its plans to establish Edvige has collected more than 103,700 signatures since July 10th, according to its website.

Several public interest groups have already lodged formal appeals with the Conseil d'Etat, France's highest administrative court, asking that it compel the state to cancel its decree establishing the Edvige database.

One would hope that the right-wing government of Nicolas Sarkozy might recall France's glorious heritage of "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité" before its citizens recall some other old French traditions from the days of the Revolution... torches, pitchforks and the guillotine.

Children from eight years old have been recruited by councils to "snoop" on their neighbours and report petty offences such as littering, the Daily Telegraph can disclose.

The youngsters are among almost 5,000 residents who in some cases are being offered £500 rewards if they provide evidence of minor infractions.

One in six councils contacted by the Telegraph said they had signed up teams of environment volunteers who are being encouraged to photograph or video neighbours guilty of dog fouling, littering or bin crimes.

The covert human intelligence sources, as some local authorities describe them, are also being asked to pass on the names of neighbours they believe to be responsible, or take down their number-plates.

Ealing Council in West London said: There are hundreds of Junior Streetwatchers, aged 8-10 years old, who are trained to identify and report enviro-crime issues such as graffiti and fly-tipping.

Harlow Council in Essex said: We currently have 25 Street Scene Champions who work with the council. They are all aged between 11 to 14. They are encouraged to report the aftermath of enviro-crimes such as vandalism to bus shelters, graffiti, abandoned vehicles, fly-tipping etc. They do this via telephone or email direct to the council.

Matthew Sinclair, of the TaxPayers' Alliance, described the recruitment of children as downright sinister. We are deeply troubled by these developments – they are straight out of the Stasi copybook. There is a combination of ever-stricter rules and ever more Draconian attempts to control people.

Councils are using anti-terrorist legislation for the tiniest of things, like the people who put out their bins early, and the threats of fines and prosecutions combine to constitute fleecing the people the councils are meant to be serving

Google have jumped the gun on Microsoft who announced a porn mode facility for the next release of their Internet Explorer browser. Google have just released their new browser, Chrome, featuring similar functionality.

For times when you want to browse in stealth mode, for example, to plan surprises like gifts or birthdays, Google Chrome offers the incognito browsing mode. Webpages that you open and files downloaded while you are incognito won't be logged in your browsing and download histories; all new cookies are deleted after you close the incognito window. You can browse normally and in incognito mode at the same time by using separate windows.

Browsing in incognito mode only keeps Google Chrome from storing information about the websites you've visited. The websites you visit may still have records of your visit. Any files saved to your computer will still remain on your computer.

You're done for not being miserable That'll be an £80 fine

Between talk of broken society and ever-increasing powers of police surveillance, there seems to be a competition between politicians to make us miserable.

The story of Milly, an eight-year-old cat who disappeared out of window in Whitstable two weeks ago, has much to tell us about the petty-minded forces that have come to replace proper policing in this country. Her owners, Stephen and Heather Cope and their son Daniel, 13, searched high and low for Milly, then, failing to find her, did what any normal person would do: put up posters to see if anyone had seen her. The next thing they heard was from one of the local council community wardens, who rang the telephone number on the poster and threatened them with a £80 on-the-spot fine for antisocial behaviour.

Seldom can there have been a more officious, twerpish enforcement of the law, but this kind of action is now one of the established parts of this dreadful government's legacy. As the police retreat from the streets, we are prey to every type of snoop, informant, busybody and vindictive martinet, all of them licensed by the government's accreditation scheme so that they may demand our names and addresses, photograph us, check car tax discs and seize alcohol, issue fines for truancy, rowdiness, graffiti and dog fouling.

...

So let us start thinking logically about crime, punishment, policing and the cause of our problems. Let us end this punitive regime. Let us put policemen back on the beat, throw the likes of Jacqui and Hazel out of office and return all their spies and accredited jobsworths to the twilight of their power-crazed fantasy lives.

...Read article from guardian.co.uk

You're nicked That'll be £80

Councils are recruiting 'citizen snoopers' to report litter louts, dog foulers and even people who fail to sort out their rubbish properly.

The 'environment volunteers' will also be responsible for encouraging neighbours to cut down on waste.

The move comes as local authorities dish out £100 fines to householders who leave out too much rubbish or fail to follow recycling rules.

It will deservedly fuel fears that Britain is lurching towards a Big Brother society, following the revelation this week that the Home Office is extending some police powers to council staff and private security guards.

Critics said the latest scheme could easily be abused and encourage a culture of bin spies and curtain twitchers.

Matthew Elliott, of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: Snooping on your neighbours to report recycling infringements sounds like something straight out of the East German Stasi's copybook. The last thing people want to pay for is an army of busybodies peering through their net curtains at their neighbours as they put out their rubbish.'

Recruitment adverts appealing for the unpaid environmental volunteers have appeared across the country in recent months.

In Hampshire, Eastleigh council wants locals to monitor local environmental quality and report 'issues' involving recycling and waste. In East London, Tower Hamlets is recruiting volunteers for a crackdown on reluctant recyclers. Other councils are expected to launch similar schemes.

Officially, the volunteers are not encouraged to spy on neighbours or report them. But councils are unlikely to ignore tip-offs.

Eastleigh has already taken on around a dozen snoops who answered an advert in a council newsletter which said: Volunteers will be involved in reporting issues in their area such as recycling, waste, fly-tipping, graffiti, dog fouling and abandoned vehicles.

Tower Hamlets calls its volunteers environment champions. According to the council they report on a number of environmental crimes, issues and concerns, such as graffiti, dumped rubbish and abandoned cars.

I was stunned to read this week about the stupidly named ContactPoint: the children's database that is almost ready to be launched.

When did Labour turn into the nasty party? Was it before the invasion of Iraq or after? I am beyond sick of the corrosion of my freedoms and the extent of invasion into my privacy by this Government. I liked Britain better when I knew what was allowed and what was not.

What was allowed to a freeborn Englishwoman was basically freedom. Even as a dingbat student in the mid-20th century, I knew exactly what to do if I was in a park on a sunny day vaguely "demonstrating" or "protesting" with others about apartheid or apple-picking collectives in Chile. We all knew that one's answer to a policeman demanding names was: I'm not obliged to give you my name, officer.

Read full article from telegraph.co.uk

Update: OutOfContact

2nd October 2008. Based on article from theregister.co.uk

The Tory Party will scrap the government's controversial ContactPoint child database if elected.

Shadow schools secretary Michael Gove told the Daily Telegraph: "ContactPoint can never be secure. We are taking this action because we are determined to protect vulnerable children from abuse - ContactPoint would increase that risk. The government has proved that it cannot be trusted to set up large databases, and cannot promise that inappropriate people would not be able to access the database."

Gove said the Tories would propose a smaller database for children moving from one local authority to another, if there were concerns. He said it would be irresponsible to implement a database which was likely to pose a danger to children.

You're nicked That'll be £80

Private security guards and town hall jobsworths are being armed with sweeping police-style powers, it has emerged.

For a few hundred pounds, state and private sector employees can receive Home Office accreditation.

This allows them to hand out fines for a raft of offences, from dropping litter to riding a bike on the pavement. They can also stop cars to check their tax discs, seize alcohol from underage drinkers and demand people's names and addresses.

 The uniformed, badged army of snoopers will become a vital part of the 'extended police family', ministers say.

But privacy campaigners have dubbed them Home Secretary Jacqui Smith's 'Stasi' after the East German secret police.

Phil Booth of NO2ID said: This is a sinister move towards a Stasi snooper state in which jobsworths are devolved the powers of the police - including the right to demand you identify yourself.

Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve added: This is a consequence of the Government's obsession with policing on the cheap as well as their staggering complacency towards the extension of surveillance by an increasing amount of different bodies.

The public will be angered that the Home Office is seeking to take serious powers that should be appropriately applied by the police and encouraging them to be given not just to local councils, but also to private firms.

The public want to see real police on the streets discharging these responsibilities, not private firms who may use them inappropriately - including unnecessarily snooping on the lives of ordinary citizens.

Details of the new army of police-style officers emerged in Home Office papers released today. There are already 1,400 town hall and private sector staff accredited, and ministers want a dramatic expansion of the scheme.

Called the Community Safety Accreditation Scheme, it allows the likes of security guards, park wardens, car park attendants and store detectives to boost their roles if they undergo training and pay a small fee to their local police force.

They can wear a special badge, and a uniform approved by the local chief constable. At present, they are wearing their employer's existing uniform with the badge sewn on, but police chiefs could eventually be encouraged to decide on a standard uniform across their force area, the Home Office said.

It also revealed that chief constables are reviewing the scheme, a move which could lead to even greater powers being handed out.

Microsoft internet explorer version 8 will have a new feature the private browsing mode also known as the porn mode. This feature provides special privacy when browsing porn sites.

With the porn mode enabled users can surf porn sites without leaving any traces behind. The online history, personal information, cache all gets erased. The porn mode also alerts user when they are being tracked.

According to Microsoft internet explorer 8 features the most important component, privacy. The aim is to make internet explorer 8 a trustworthy browser.

Privacy browsing is not a new feature and already seen in the Apple safari browser since 2005. Firefox 3 browser also was supposed to feature the privacy component but was not implemented because of complex designing issues.

The final version of the internet explorer 8 is expected to be release by the end of 2008.

Air passengers travelling to British airports are to have their faces scanned and identities checked by machines.

Thousands of passengers are already being scanned in a trial being carried out at two airports.

However if the trials prove successful, ministers want the machines to replace most front line airport immigration officer over the next five years.

As well as improving security, ministers hope the computers will cut passenger congestion. The machines take 13-15 seconds per passenger, while a human takes 20 seconds.

Eleven pilot "walk-in" machines were covertly introduced at Manchester and Stansted airports last month to check passports automatically. The new machines take instant photographs of the holder, which are then electronically matched against the 2D digital pictures in their documents to check their identities.

Last night a UK Border Agency spokesman said: "The UK is undergoing the biggest shake-up in its borders for nearly 40 years, Britain's border security is now among the toughest in the world. The new facial recognition gates undertake checks against security watch lists in the same way as the current manual control. The trial will tell us whether these gates can maintain the high level of entry security we have introduced to the UK.

Yahoo have launched Fire Eagle which lets users manage information on where they are.

Hard privacy protection questions need to be asked, said Jeff Chester, director of The Centre for Digital Democracy: These services are all being sold to consumers as only providing real benefit. No one is talking about the fact they are about building and collecting more data ,not just about the content you like but where you go and where you are at the moment.

Fire Eagle, which has just been opened up to the public, helps manage location information for websites and for any device that has internet access.

This is a way for the user to take their location to the web, for every site on the web to become geo-aware and to respond to where users are, explained Tom Coates head of product at Yahoo's start-up project, Brickhouse.

So far more than 50 third-party developers have signed up to offer Fire Eagle to their users, including Pownce, a micro-blogging service, brightkite, a location based social network, and DOPPLR which links travellers.

Yahoo said the service gives users complete control over their information and over which applications have access to their location. Users can also control whether an application can track their exact location, their ZIP or postcode or just the city they are in. Every 45 days, the service will send users an email to reauthorize the sharing of their location with the enabled applications: We only store your current information and don't keep any historical logs. That information will stay there until you over ride it or change it.

Coates said as an added protection Fire Eagle lets you hide your location at times and even lie about where you are if you want to.

Some blogs note however that while users can purge information from Fire Eagle, this will not delete location data collected over time by authorised sites.

Greg Sterling of SearchEngineLand said the added benefits of location information offers great opportunities for advertisers: Advertisers have yet to catch up to the possibility this space offers and Fire Eagle makes it that more explicit for them so I think we will see more targeted adverts coming into being that can take advantage of a person's location.

Government

The Home Office is shortly to compel telecoms companies and internet service providers to keep details of all your emailing, browsing and phone calls for up to 24 months. And it will specify in what form the information is to be kept.

It is heartening that press and public have woken up to this snoopers' charter just as the final piece of the picture is hammered into place.

It is being introduced in the form of a Statutory Instrument enforcing an EU directive - which means it is unlikely to be even debated in parliament and cannot be amended by our elected representatives. Perhaps that is why this is being released while MPs are on holiday. They don't matter to the process.

The Home Office is taking the maximum powers allowed under the directive - which shouldn't be a surprise, as the directive itself was inspired by lobbying from Charles Clarke in the council of ministers when he was home secretary. The minimum six months' retention is probably what we will see in Germany, which resisted the exercise; the Home Office is taking powers for four times as long.

...Read full article from guardian.co.uk

Government powers to access millions of people's private phone records are set to be extended to email accounts and website records, ministers have said.

The news means that councils or quangoes could access private email accounts or examine internet phone records to snoop on taxpayers.

It has emerged that Sir Paul Kennedy, the spying watchdog, said they were not using their powers to examine phone bills and call records enough.

Since last October phone companies have had to retain information about all landline and mobile phone calls made by members of the public for one year, and hand over the data to more than 650 public bodies and quangos.

The move, approved by Parliament last July under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, was justified as a vital tool in the fight against terrorism but was then extended to enable council use to investigate trivial offences.

The Home Office said it wanted to extend the powers to include people's access to websites, email accounts and even phone calls made over the internet using services like Skype.

A Home Office consultation document on implementing an EU directive on electronic communications said the data would only be made available to assist in the investigation, detection and prosecution of serious crime. [The government have also been busy redefining lesser crimes as 'serious']

The cost of the new plan is likely to be borne by internet and telecommunications companies, although the Home Office said this would form part of the consultation.

The move has been heavily criticised, with claims that extending the powers was further evidence of a "snoopers' charter".

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said: Ministers have proven time and time again that they are not to be trusted with sensitive data, but they seem intent on pressing ahead with this snoopers' charter. We will be told it is for use in combating terrorism and organised crime but if RIPA powers are anything to go by, it will soon be used to spy on ordinary people's kids, pets and bins. Once again, the Government seems prepared to be more invasive than its EU counterparts in seeking to hold phone records for two years rather than six months.

Guy Herbert, a spokesman for the No2ID campaign, said the information would be made available to hundreds of official bodies responsible under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. He said: As ever with the database state this is a mass-surveillance measure for the retrospective convenience of officialdom in general.

The Home Office said that enforcement officers would only have access to where emails were sent or received from and not their content. A spokesman said: This data is a vital tool to investigations and intelligence gathering in support of national security and crime. Communications data allows investigators to identify suspects, examine their contacts, establish relationships between conspirators and place them in a specific location at a certain time. It also gives investigators the potential to identify other forensic opportunities, identify witnesses and premises of evidential interest. Many alibis are proven or refuted through the use of communications data. Without the directive investigative opportunities will increasingly be lost.

In the House of Lords Lib Dem peer Baroness Miller has asked a series of questions about the nature of talks between the government and Phorm.

Critics have asked why the Home Office has not intervened over secret Phorm trials BT cond