From the Telegraph:

“The British Airline Pilots Association (Balpa), which represents most of the country’s commercial pilots, said the Government’s “early warning system should be flashing” over its opposition to plans to force aviation workers be the first Britons to carry ID cards.

“Jim McAuslan, Balpa’s general secretary, said his members resented being treated as guinea pigs and added: “It may come to an industrial dispute.

“We would want to avoid that. We would want the Government to think again about the whole scheme,” he told The Independent.

“The Government insists that the cards must be fast-tracked to airport staff due to the importance of high security in their workplaces. The Home Office is preparing to unveil a plan to make staff at Manchester and London City airports sign up for an ID card before they can apply for security accreditation necessary for workers at the sites. Under the plans, ID cards will be issued to staff from next autumn.

“Mr McAuslan said: “The Government has said previously that ID cards will be voluntary, but the indications are that if you choose not to have a card, you will not get an airside pass.”

The Independent quotes Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary Chris Huhne:

“It is no surprise that pilots are up in arms since they are one of the few groups selected as guinea pigs for this benighted experiment.”

You can sign the Liberal Democrats’ petition against ID cards here.

In the week that The Liverpool Daily Post reported that Merseyside Police have placed the details of a seven year old on the National DNA Database, we learn that more than a million of those registered on the national DNA database were still children when their details were added.

The Telegraph has this story:

“Official figures show that, since the DNA database was created, 1.07 million profiles of children have been added. This is nearly a quarter of the 4.4million profiles on the database. Anyone who comes into contact with the police, as an offender or a witness, can have a DNA sample taken for the database.

“Ministers and the police say the database is a vital tool in solving crimes, and has helped detectives crack major cases including murder and rape.

“A breakdown of the figures shows that the profiles of more 100,000 children had their DNA taken when they were under 13, and the profiles of more than half a million children were added to the database when they were aged between 13 and 15.

“In the past three years, 48,500 children under-13 and 204,666 children aged between 13 and 15 were added. The figures are far higher than previously thought as Government figures only estimate the number of children currently on the database. Official figures show that the profiles of 344,339 children have been included.”

Helen Wallace, from campaign group GeneWatch UK said, “The massive expansion of the DNA database treats hundred of thousands of young people as suspects for life. Their DNA could be used to track them or their relatives or to reveal private genetic information.”

Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary Chris Huhne said that the Government are “making the world’s biggest DNA database by stealth.”

You can help our campaign to protect innocent people’s DNA by encouraging friends and family to sign our petition at http://ourcampaign.org.uk/dna

In a new twist on the National Lottery, Jacqui Smith announced earlier this month that the Home Office would be approaching outlets such as supermarkets and Post Offices to help issue ID Cards.

Guy Herbert, from No2ID said: “It sounds like a mad fantasy of setting up something like a Photo-Me kiosk to collect fingerprints. Leaving aside the technical and security issues, both would be risky from the point of view of the reputation of the organisations involved, and financially terrifying.”

Today, znet.co.uk reports that the public have rejected such a scheme:

“Only 25 percent of more than 2,000 people questioned for the government’s Central Office of Information would consider having their fingerprints, photo and signature recorded for an ID card in a supermarket, according to research commissioned by the Identity and Passport Service (IPS). This increased to just 26 percent for a petrol station, 28 percent for a department store and 29 percent for a local shop.”

Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesperson Tom Brake said:

“Signing up for an ID card isn’t like buying a lottery ticket. It’s clear ministers are desperate to find any means to get people to sign up for an ID card. This is just their latest half-baked attempt.”

Jacqui Smith wants to make signing up for an ID card as convenient as buying a scratchcard - but the odds of the Government “redistributing” your private information must be significantly better than winning the jackpot!

You’re currently required to go for a face-to-face passport interview, in a £115m scheme set up by the Government, and which helped push the price of your passport from £42 in 2005, up to £72.

The Daily Mail reports that of the 216,581 people who were interviewed in the 12 months up to July, none were found to be applying fraudulently.

Liberal Democrat Peer Lord Roberts of Llandudno, who obtained the figures, said the interviews “have not achieved what they were supposed to do. There have been over 200,000 interviews and zero rejections. What is the point of them? The millions of pounds spent on this project was a total waste of money.”

Security minister Lord West insisted that the interviews “act as a protection for British citizens against one form of identity theft.”

So if forking out £72 and travelling miles to an interview centre doesn’t appeal, the second option is to wait for a passport simply to fall into your lap.

The Daily Mail reports that “FIVE passports are lost in the post every day by Home Office” and says that this has “raised fears they may have fallen into the hands of terrorists or fraudsters.”

The story quotes figures uncovered by the Liberal Democrats showing that a total of 12,200 passports were lost in the post by government officials between 2001 and 2007.

Chris Huhne, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary said,

“We all know that things can go missing, but these figures again demonstrate an almost institutionalised carelessness.

“It beggars belief that a secure courier service can be losing passports in transit at the rate of two a day.

“People will be rightly concerned that the Government cannot be trusted with something as personal as a passport.”

Both the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have insisted that the ID card scheme will reduce the risk of terrorism and improve national security.

However, GCHQ advisor Harvey Mattinson told an IT security conference this week that “Those claims are absolute bunkum.”

Gordon Brown said earlier this year that ID cards would “help inside our borders in the fight against crime, illegal working, benefit fraud and terrorism.”

Chris Huhne, Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesperson said, “The money for this costly and useless ID card scheme should go on more police on our streets, a measure that would help to cut crime and fight terrorism.”

Martin Horwood, Liberal Democrat MP for Cheltenham said, “I can’t see how ID cards could have stopped any of the major terrorist attacks we have seen in recent years.

“The 9/11 terrorists had valid US passports and documents, while the Madrid and London bombers were all identified and possessed appropriate paperwork and ID.”

From the Telegraph
From thisisgloucestershire

You can sign the Liberal Democrats’ petition against ID cards here.

Data breaches in the private sector were less than half this number: 80 cases were reported.

Earlier this year, Parliament decided that the ICO would be given greater powers to penalise organisations which “recklessly” lose personal data. Information Commissioner Richard Thomas is calling for this to take place as soon as possible.

www.publicservice.co.uk has the story.

The Government departments responsible for the internal security of the nation are so hopeless at their own internal security that they’ve been losing passes at the rate of more than one per day. total of 3,492 staff security passes have been lost or stolen since 2001.  (The departments split in 2007.)

Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary Chris Huhne said:

Everyone understands that things can go missing, but these figures suggest a culture of carelessness among the people responsible for our safety and security.

On average, one of their employees loses their security pass every day.

This Government wants powers to build a database of every phone call and email, but the evidence of lost security passes suggests they could not be trusted to run a nightclub door.

They must scrap ID cards before they are allowed to treat our most sensitive data in the same slapdash manner.”

The Press Association has this report.

He said, the Government should insist that “our rights are priceless” and that: “The best way to face down those threats is to strengthen our institutions rather than to degrade them.”

The intervention will be seen as a significant setback to Home Secretary Jacqui Smith who last week saw her plans to lock up terror suspects for 42 days before being charged thrown out by the House of Lords.

It is also a blow to Miss Smith’s plans for a super-database to record the details of millions of people’s online presence, including emails, SMS messages and Facebook profiles as well as the controversial identity card programme.

Sir Ken chose to issue his tough warning about the perils of the “Big Brother” state in his final speech as DPP, days before he leaves his post at the end of this month.

He warned that MPs should “take very great care to imagine the world we are creating before we build it. We might end up living with something we can’t bear”. (Telegraph)

Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, said:

Sir Ken Macdonald has sounded a clarion call for freedom. He is absolutely right to highlight the danger of a Leviathan state that wants to know all and control all about the citizens it should serve and not master. Even very recent history shows that extraordinary state powers are not just used to pursue terrorists. A brief examination of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act shows that it is far more likely to be used to spy on children, pets and bins than it is to catch serious criminals.

The Home Office on Wednesday terminated its contract with a private company that lost the details of thousands of criminals, in a decision that cast doubt over the company’s continuing advice to government about its identity cards scheme.

Jacqui Smith, home secretary, said on Wednesday PA Consulting would lose a £1.5m three-year deal with the Home Office after an employee mislaid a computer memory stick that contained confidential data on up to 130,000 offenders and prisoners.

Ms Smith said all PA Consultancy’s contracts with the Home Office – worth an estimated £8m per annum – were being reviewed, as well as those signed with other companies…

Tom Brake, Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, accused ministers of “making scapegoats out of private companies” to cover up “incompetence at the heart of government”.

• Information on around 10,000 prolific offenders
• Information on 30,000 people from the Police National Computer
• Information on all 84,000 prisoners in England and Wales

The prolific offenders information (and possibly the others) was also unencrypted.

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg’s view? “Charlie Chaplin could do a better job running the Home Office than this Labour Government.”