Leeds NO2ID met last night to have a dry run of the public meeting that is taking place next Wednesday evening at 7pm on the University of Leeds campus. Have a look at our events section for more details. Thanks to some of the fantastic IT skills of one of our members we are ‘fairly’ confident that we will be able to show both a video and power point presentations! So prepared to be dazzled by our technological skills
As it’s the groups first public meeting we are hoping that people will take an interest and come along to learn more about the scheme.
A Hacker in Chile has posted 6 million people’s personal details on the internet, including ID card numbers and address. This is a perfect example of the sort of thing that can happen when you place everyone’s personal details on a centralized database. It’s a stark warning of what the UK can expect if we push ahead with the National ID card scheme.
Bradford NO2ID received a mention in their local newspaper, with an article announcing their pledge to campaign against private companies that will be involved in working with the Government to implement the National Identity Card Scheme. You can read the story here
The Bradford Telegraph and Argus have printed a letter I sent them regarding the latest governmental report on the cost of the ID card scheme. The letter can be viewed here
There is currently a debate going on within the York Press’ letters page around the issue of ID cards. It’s worth checking out the pages online and adding your own comments. I’ve replied to this letter and pointed out that ID cards are unlikely to help in identifying people because there is no legal requirement to carry one. Because there is also a fine if you lose or deface the card, as with passports I should imagine most people will want to keep their card safely at home.
As so often with issues surrounding ID cards people tend to miss the main point that it is the National Identity Register that posses the biggest problems and not the actual card itself.
We are pleased to hear that the Leeds Branch of the University and Colleagues Union (UCU) has passed a motion opposing ID cards and supporting the Leeds group of NO2ID. They will now be putting a proposal to their national congress at the end of May asking that the National Union affiliates to NO2ID. With Leeds Student Union and UCU on Leeds campus both opposed ID cards there is certainly a growing wave of opposition to the scheme within the city.
Credit to Selby Ross. Of course it sounds better with the tune. Check it out here:
Chorus: Say no to id
you’re not tagging me
say no to id
lets keep our privacy
and say no to id
the government they tell me
I need an id card
(what for?)
I carry so much plastic
one more can’t be that hard
they’ll capture all my details
on a giant database
take my finger prints, my dna
and stick a scanner in my face!
(Chorus)
I’ve always tried to live
in a law abiding way
soon it seems I’ll have to prove
my innocence each day
they say what’s the problem?
why make such a fuss?
tell me do we work for them
or do they work for us?
(Chorus)
it’s so nice to know
someone is always watching you
Hitler would have loved it
and so would Stalin too
Am I paranoid
or simply having a good moan?
Or is it the desire
to be left the hell alone?
(too right)
(Chorus)
Our private information
Will be safe in every way
Though half a million civil servants
will have access every day
Lets be realistic:
Everything they touch
works half as well
takes twice as long
and costs 10 times as much!
(chorus)
They just want to protect us
and make us all behave
So we’re to be tracked
from the cradle to the grave
I’ve no wish to be treated
like a suspect all the time
so take your card and stick it
where the sun will never shine..
(there must be a better way to spend 20 million quid!)
Leeds Student Union is teaming up with NO2ID to host a public meeting on Leeds University campus. Speakers will be addressing the ‘Identity Crisis’ we are facing as a result of the introduction of the National ID card scheme and the Database State. There will be time for members of the audience to involve themselves in a Q&A session after the talks. Details of the meeting can be seen below:
Chaired by Nadine Omotese, Local Coordinator for Leeds NO2ID.
Speakers to include:
oJames Elsdon-Baker – Yorkshire NO2ID coordinator
oDr Martin Hemingway – Green Party
oDr Carole McCartney - lecturer in criminal law and criminal justice at the University of Leeds
oJamie Matthews – Liberal Democrats
Time 19:00 – 20:00Date: Wednesday 21st May Venue: Leeds University Union Conference Hall, Lvl 2 Union Building, University of Leeds Campus.
No admittance charge and all are welcome.For further details Contact: Leeds@no2id.net
The Leeds council elections should be called any moment now and Jamie has stood as a councilor for the Lib Dems in Headingley ward. I’m about to head off for the Bank holiday weekend, but I’ll keep you all posted on whether we need to add Cllr in front of Jamie’s name!
Hope you all have a good Bank Holliday weekend, and lets hope for a bit of sun!
Incoming passengers at Leeds Bradford airport may this summer be greeted, by a camera. Plans to replace passport control officers with facial recognition technology are to be brought in to speed up waiting times at airports for those with new ‘biometric’ passports. However, passengers may find themselves being wrongly targeted by computers that incorrectly identify them. Checks by passport officers will then need to be carried out, slowing significant numbers of passengers and wrongly picking out travellers for scrutiny. Local campaign group Leeds NO2ID [1] also condemned the plans announced today to introduce unmanned border checkpoints using facial recognition technology as deliberate misdirection.
Though details are yet to be confirmed, comments by Home Office minister Liam Byrne [2] seem to indicate that the system will actually be based on reading the personal information stored on microchips in the new
‘ePassports’. And that this will feed into the eBorders and ‘Advanced Passenger Information’ (API) systems that already spread tens of millions of travellers’ personal details around the world.
NO2ID has already demonstrated the vulnerability of the personal information held on the chip embedded in the passport – first reading the supposedly secure chip using equipment bought over the internet for less than £100 [3] and then extracting all the data from an unknown person’s passport, still sealed within the envelope in which it was sent from the Passport Office [4].
Leeds NO2ID spokesman commented that Leeds Bradford airport will soon resemble a robotic conveyer belt, with innocent travellers being tagged and flagged by flawed computers, which will be gathering and sharing personal details of hundreds of travellers a day. Phil Booth, NO2ID’s national coordinator, said: “These technologies are only being introduced to make it easier to collect and track personal information about travellers.People shouldn’t be fooled by ministers’ fairytale claims about biometrics, but should rather be asking where their personal details are being sent and why. Transmitting your passport data, home address, and even credit card details abroad shows contempt for YOUR security. And waving a camera in your face while doing it is just misdirection.”
1) NO2ID is the UK-wide non-partisan campaign against ID cards and the database state. See http://www.no2id.net/dbstate.php for a list of ‘database state’ initiatives that NO2ID is actively opposing.
2) ‘Face scans for air passengers to begin in UK this summer’, Guardian, 25/4/08 -http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/apr/25/theairlineindustry.transport
3) http://www.guardian.co.uk/idcards/story/0,,1950226,00.html – working with security expert Adam Laurie, NO2ID were able to extract all the stored data from the new ‘biometric’ e-Passport using equipment
bought for less than £100 over the internet. This data would not only allow criminals to ‘clone’ new chips with valid data into fake passports, but could also be used to facilitate fraud and identity theft.
4) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=440069&in_page_id=1770 - confounding Home Office claims that the data chip could only be accessed if the passport’s unique ‘MRZ
number’ is known, NO2ID read all the data from the chip on a new passport *still sealed inside the envelope* in which it was sent by supposedly “secure delivery” to its new owner.
Major cities in Yorkshire such as Leeds now have ANPR cameras installed. If the Government’s data-sharing policy is carried through then this information could easily be linked or cross-referenced with the personal information held on the National Identity Register (NIR). The Government claims the National Identity Register will only contain a few pieces of information; the reality is that it will be able to link in with countless other databases and sources of information to form a Database state. It will form the lynch pin of the Database state.
