Welcome to Identity Trust CIC

 

 

Enabling Trust: Empowering People

 

 


Convention of Modern Liberty: Anti-surveillance movement grows

This From: VNUNet.com, March 2, 2009
http://www.vnunet.com

Protests at government surveillance grow
1,500 attend public meeting to warn of database dangers
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2237593/1500-protest-government

Rosalie Marshall
vnunet.com, 02 Mar 2009

More than 1,500 people attended a public meeting on Saturday to discuss how
increasing UK government surveillance is eroding individuals' freedom and
privacy.

Government officials, journalists, authors and privacy experts used the
Convention of Modern Liberty to call on British citizens to defend the
privacy of their data, and to campaign against the growing use of government
databases and data collection.  http://www.modernliberty.net/

"The idea was not to form another civil liberties organisation, but to spark
a political movement by laying out an argument and the facts of Labour's
erosion of our constitutional rights," said staunch liberty rights
campaigner Henry Porter in a column in The Observer.
Porter explained that the campaign had been fuelled partly by the actions of
justice secretary Jack Straw, whom he labelled "one of the enemies of
democracy ", owing to his Coroners and Justice Bill that lifts the Data
Protection Act ban on information sharing between ministries.
http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page17675

The Convention of Modern Liberty was held at the Institute for Education in
London, and there were parallel regional and national meetings in Belfast,
Bristol, Cambridge, Glasgow and Manchester.

Among the 22 focus sessions was a discussion called 'Business Gets Personal,
Can Privacy Have a Future?', centring on how the web has revolutionised
commerce and advertising, and how online businesses have access to
worryingly large amounts of consumer data. The convention asked whether data
should be considered safe in the hands of such corporations, and whether
consumers should have a choice on who collects data and where it ends up.

Deputy information commissioner David Smith discussed how resources at the
Information Commissioner's Office are generally focused on the private
sector, and questioned whether more funds should be given to the public
sphere.

Other heated subjects of debate included Facebook's data sharing principles,
and BT's advert-serving Phorm technology.

Another session called 'The Database State and Transformational Government'
discussed the dangers of unifying electronic records from different state
departments.

Keynote speakers included Shami Chakrabarti, director of human rights
organisation Liberty, author Philip Pullman and politician David Davis, who
suggested that the role and reach of the government in society is now "out
of control".  <| Powered by www.ISPIClips.com |>

Davis pointed to DNA collection, surveillance, the creation of large
databases and software that can identify where a car is driven in the
country as examples of how the balance of power between the state and
citizen is changing.

"Piece by piece everybody's liberties, privacy and rights are eroded. Now
what we have to do is fight every single one," he said.

Michael Wills, minister of state for the Ministry of Justice, claimed that
the government needs to achieve a balance of maintaining citizens' liberty
while securing their wellbeing.

Conservative minister Damian Green, meanwhile, criticised the government for
making criminals of "everyone who takes a photo of a policeman or sensitive
building".

"Have these people never heard of Google Earth?", he asked. "The state is
reaching for big databases and big IT solutions as a magic wand to solve the
problems of the 21st century. They won't do that, but what they will do is
erode vital conservative freedoms."

Green argued that the British people should be alerted to the dangers that
large databases pose to their freedom.

Finally, left-wing politician Tony Benn maintained that UK citizens are "
under attack" and called for a counterattack.

"The government thinks that, by implying that there could be a terrorist
attack in your street every week, you have to give up your rights that we've
fought for so hard in previous generations," he said.

The Convention of Modern Liberty urges members to make a personal commitment
not to comply with the National Identity Scheme, opt out of the NHS Summary
Care Record programme, reclaim DNA held in the National DNA database, and
petition against the government taking biometric information from young
children.