from: http://www.aci.net/kalliste/ Click Here: <A HREF="http://www.aci.net/kalliste/">The Home Page of J. Orlin Grabbe</A> ----- The End of Privacy Watching Big Brother Watching You The government will protect your privacy. Yeah, right. SOME time ago Elizabeth France got a telephone call at work from a man claiming to be an Inland Revenue inspector. After asking a few anodyne questions about her tax return, he thanked her for her time and asked her to confirm her home address. The Data Protection Commissioner thought little of it until she got another call a few days later from a Sunday newspaper journalist. He read out a list of her most private financial information, including details of her bank account, the outstanding balance on her mortgage and the size of her latest gas bill. It was only then that she realised that the first caller had been a private investigator, acting illegally on behalf of the paper, and that by verifying her address she had given him all he needed to find out the rest. It is, perhaps, not surprising that Mrs France has a shredder by her desk nor that she refuses to enter the names of her children in Who's Who for fear that they will be abducted. "You do tend to become a bit of a hypochondriac doing this job," she says. This sprightly 50-year-old, mother of three is Britain's champion of privacy and civil liberties. While Channel 4 turns the cameras on a group of housemates 24 hours a day, Mrs France is working around the clock to stop Big Brother taking over the country. It appears to be an increasingly difficult job. Like the unwitting star of The Truman Show, our movements are captured in detail by closed circuit television cameras on every street corner, our e-mails read by internet snoopers, our names and addresses sold on lucrative lists from one marketing company to another. If Benji the Binman is not rifling through your rubbish, then Sidney the Supermarket Man will be shuffling through your storecard slips working out how many loaves of bread you buy a week so that he can offer you a discount on a new range of ciabatta. Even Tony Blair has had his private thoughts splashed over the front pages and seen his family photographs revealed against his will to the world. How is the guardian of privacy going to cope? Mrs France thinks the Prime Minister is a special case: "He has to accept that he is a public person," she says sternly. "He is going to be treated differently." But she is adamant that more needs to be done to protect members of the public. Next week, she will launch a television advertising campaign encouraging people to take more care with their private information. In the autumn, she is bringing out a new code of practice for employers. "People are much more aware of their rights now," she says. "They want to protect their privacy." The commissioner was dismayed by the News of the World campaign to expose paedophiles, which was dropped recently. She said: "Somebody's life could be ruined because they were wrongly identified or because they thought they were about to be exposed. Parliament has decided that we should not have a published register of paedophiles." But at the moment the internet is her main concern. Last week, Barclays customers found that their accounts had been accessed by other people and last month Powergen users found their details posted on the website for all to read. It is not surprising consumers have lost confidence in electronic transactions. "It is possible to secure the net but we have to be very cautious," the Data Protection Commissioner says. "The security we have had elsewhere may well not be robust enough. Of course you mustn't have your whole database sitting there 24 hours a day for people to try to get into. But having some fairly big guys make these mistakes will actually help to focus minds on what needs to be done." This will all come to a head next month when the Government goes online. Tony Blair wants everybody to file their tax returns and claim their benefits via the web. He has promised to make all Government services available electronically by 2005. The aim is for every British citizen to have a personal "portal" through which they can deal with the state. But Mrs France is worried. "There are big data protection issues," she says. "I would be hesitant about going too far. We have to be very careful that we don't go too gung-ho on target dates without having thought through all the implications. Having seen what happens when people with money to spend go online, it would be unfortunate if the dates set by Government were met if we weren't ready." One concern is that information obtained by one department will be available to another through a giant computer computer system. "The Government cannot override the barriers and create a big melting pot of information simply because the technology allows it to do so. Citizens would be most concerned about dealing electronically with government if it meant you had to deal with Big Brother who had everything in front of him. "We often have to stop the people who have got excited about the technology rushing off and letting the technology lead. The technology should never lead - we need to develop a more effective public service while respecting the need for privacy." Another problem is the security of the identification process. Mrs France does not think that Pin numbers and personal information are adequate. "How can you be sure that the person using the right computer, giving the right mother's maiden name is not the 18-year-old son?" she says. In her view, the only solution is a "digital ID card", used with a biometric test such as an iris scan or fingerprint assessment. "I am very much against the ID card on a World War Two European model, where a policeman can tap you on the shoulder and ask for your papers. But we are in a new game now and we need to have something that authenticates a transaction. The purpose of this is clear - it's your key to doing business online with the Government or the private sector. I don't think we will get citizen confidence unless there is something fairly rigorous." The Cabinet Office says it has taken Mrs France's comments on board. But this is not her only grumble with the Government. She wants to know more about Alistair Darling's plans to allow benefit fraud inspectors to demand details of people's private bank accounts. "I would be concerned about fishing expeditions," she says. "There must be proportionality." She also plans to keep an eye on the implementation of the Government's new Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, the so-called "snoopers' charter" which allows public authorities to read private e-mails. "We certainly thought it would breach the Human Rights Act but it has been improved as it's gone through and we have to wait and see on a case to case basis what happens," she says. Does she think the Government is putting the national interest above individual rights? "It's doing both," she replies carefully. "It's strengthened data protection and human rights legislation but it's also introduced the RIP Bill and broadened the powers of fraud inspectors. A balance needs to be maintained and we don't really know, until we see these measures used in practice, whether it is being." The commissioner's message to Mr Blair is unambiguous: "We're watching," she says. The London Telegraph, August 10, 2000 ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, All My Relations. Omnia Bona Bonis, Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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