privacy

[bb52]

we should really support the value of people's PRIVACY - what with tabloid, unmoderated messageboards, google street maps et al - it seems a lost value in society

perhaps people may be inspired to speak to mps, newspapers (and post up on messageboards) or perhaps the MU may want to start a campaign...

PRIVACY should be valued

It is valued, too much if anything. You have to balance privacy against freedom of expression and public interest.

You can opt out, by and large. Don't have that loyalty card. Don't sign up for facebook or go on messageboards. Tick 'no publicity' and 'I don't want my details passed on to anyone else' on websites etc. Civil liberties are important - we don't want anything truly invasive like a DNA database or those ridiculous ID cards the last government proposed. Newspapers are definitely the weak link.... deadly when they turn their spotlight on someone who can't afford a libel suit. But you can still enjoy plenty of privacy if you're selective about whom you give private information.

international privacy campaign?

Largely I agree with Cogito and I do try to opt out as much as possible. I wouldn't go on Facebook in a million years.

But one thing where it's difficult to opt out is the increasing ubiquity of cameras. Both CCTV cameras (I read once that we are now the most surveilled nation on earth is terms of CCTV cameras per square mile) but also cameras on mobile phones. This means that apart from in your own home, anything you do can be recorded at put up on YouTube by a complete stranger.

I think it's sad that Google were able to photograph virtually every house in the country with very little public outrage.

I have no sympathy for the views of that woman who had a rant against immigrants on the tube but I don't think it right for her life to be ruined and her children taken away.

One of my least favourite phrases - regularly trotted out by ID-card and DNA record -mongers is "If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear".

i'd like to see new/more privacy laws

Call me slow, but I genuinely don't understand the hoo ha surrounding a DNA database. Why would it be so horrendous?

but I genuinely don't understand the hoo ha surrounding a DNA database

if it fell into the wrong hands - and that does happen - then it could be scarey.

The census last year was filled in and by the end of the year it had been hacked into, apart from the fact that as an american company took the cenus the american government can then look at any information that an american company takes - so all your detiasl are elsewhere. Then what happens if that information falls into the wrong hands.

Didn't are government lose the child benefit database and that had all our children names dates of birth and addresses included in the information

The assumption of a DNA database is that everyone is a criminal waiting to happen. And that is downright offensive. At the moment, for your DNA, fingerprints and other biometric data to be held, there has to be reasonable grounds to suspect that you may have been involved in a crime. If there are no reasonable grounds, people should be left in peace.

IBM and the Holocaust by Edwin Black describes the use of Hollerith/IBM punchcard technology by the Nazis.

That number tattooed on your wrist? Your Hollerith punchcard number.

One of the books conclusions is that, although the general Dutch population exhibited immense personal heroism in defence of Jews from home and abroad, the Netherlands had one of the highest rates of deportation to concentration camps because of its extremely thorough, up-to-date and accurate census and address records.

Whereas France had a much lower deportation rate because, although the French attitude was broadly "Hands off all Frenchmen, Jewish or otherwise, but we're not so bothered about all those bloody refugees," the French didn't have the same level of accurate, machine-readable records. And then actively frustrated Nazi attempts to create them - not recording religion, for example.

Once a database of any kind has been created, it can be used for all sorts of purposes. Legislation is a very weak, malleable control compared to not having the database. The more searchable and analysable the database, the more imaginative the uses you can come up with.

I'm not trying to wildly scaremonger, but it's a Thing That Can Happen.

I read somewhere that the Dutch had brought in ID documents many years before WW2. The details included the person's religion and one of the reasons for was that if someone died when away form their home and contact with family, at least they could be given a funeral according to their religious custom.

In other words, purely humane and benign motives.

However they were later used to deadly effect in rounding up Jews.

When we allow any of our freedoms or privacy to be taken away, or power over these to be given to the state, we shouldn't just ask whether the motives of those proposing it are honourable, but whether we would want these powers to be in the hands of our greatest political enemy.

One problem with an official database is that it's only as good as the information contained within. Should there be an admin cock up (such as your name is wrongly printed on the card) how do you proove that the cock up is the governments fault and not you being deceptive?

Also, in the case of the biometric ID card that Labour were so keen on, how do you verify who you are when you first apply? If you turn up with your birth certificate and driving licence, and that is good enough for you to get a new ID card issued against, why do you need another (expensive) ID card?

If you want something to think about, try googling Echelon. There is no such thing as a private phone call or email.

The privatisation of our essential services means that your private and sensitive information is spread around anonymous unaccountable private companies.

The worst privacy abuses is on those not wealthy enough to have their own lawyers.

If you need help with your unaffordable bills for example, one private offshore company will send you a 30 page booklet to fill in with your most private information - including itemising what you spend your money on, medical history, etc. Quite outrageous.