A police state ?

I've talked about serendipity a few times before. And a couple of strands in the News today show it at work.

The information commissioner has served notices on 4 polices forces telling them that some information they hold about people is no longer relevant and should be deleted. The BBC has examples of the things he's talking about in their report of the story. I've got a lot of time for the current Information Commissioner - a man called Richard Thomas. He talked about "Sleepwalking into a surveillance society" - and the Today programme where I heard about the police issue, later had another privacy story, this time on CCTV (which you can hear about 20 minutes into their listen again segment) But that's not the serendipitous thing I was thinking about.  

The government's ID card scheme tends to raise the hackles of people who fret about the surveillance Society or "the database state"*. There is a fine line between having a view about the use of IT (quite proper for someone working at a company like Microsoft) and party politics (which should stay out of a work blog). So I'll just say I found it interesting when the news also reported that both candidates for the leadership of the Liberal party say they will lead civil disobedience by refusing to carry the card (one has it on his web site, the other doesn't). I can't remember a major party's leader taking such a position on any kind of legislation, however unpopular.

I'm curious to know if people think I should or shouldn't use this blog to talk about my views on privacy, protection of the individual on line and similar themes. Commenting is only a click away.

Technorati tags: ID Cards, Privacy, Information Commissioner

* No-2-ID defines the "Database state" as "'the tendency to try to use computers to manage society by watching people. " and cites the following examples:

ID interrogation centres, for passports and ID cards

ePassports that help collect data about your travel for...

International eBorders schemes that exchange Passenger Name Record information with foreign countries as well as collecting them

Recording of all car journeys, using Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR)

'Entitlement cards' as part of or linked to the ID scheme, logging use of public services

Centralised medical records without privacy

Biometrics in schools - fingerprinting children as young as 4 or 5

'ContactPoint' , a database collecting sensitive information on every child

Fingerprinting in pubs and bars - landlords forced to monitor their patrons

A greatly expanded National DNA Database (NDNAD)

New police powers to check identity

Increasing Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks for employees and volunteers

Businesses under pressure to verify ID of staff and customers with the government

Comments

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  I blogged yesterday about the database stated and referred to No2ID including their example of International

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  Thanks for that. A lot of sense there. What I'm allowed to say by Microsoft is pretty much anything I want, provided I keep an eye on things like the laws of libel. What it's proper to put on a work blog is something else - I wouldn't put "Vote for X" here that's party politics. But something which has a political dimension can be OK.... I'm interested to know if people who've been  reading this blog, and especially the IT professionals who Microsoft pays me to communicate with - are interested in debate about privacy issues, or if they'd rather have more how-to articles for server 2008. I'm not going to cross privacy off my list of things to talk about, but I'll talk about it less if people tell me that's not something they're interested in.

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  At risk of repeating myself. A lot of sense there too :-) You're right that this isn't a democracy (can you have a graphocracy ? ) , but at the same time I don't want to drive readers away. As for being a PR shill well ... I wouldn't be working at Microsoft if I didn't see the world more-or-less the Microsoft way. Not everything about Microsoft is perfect and where I think those bits are interesting I'll talk about them ... which doesn't mean getting all the dirty laundry out in public (the ins and outs of a change to one of our employment policies would make a null read for any non Microsoft person). Hopefully readers will read what I have to say understanding that. What some people find hard to grasp is I can say what I want (subject to consequences of course) I'm about to go on holiday and I might use the time to write an opinion piece and sound out a few people before posting.

• Anonymous
  November 02, 2007
  Yes

• Anonymous
  November 02, 2007
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  November 03, 2007
  The comment has been removed