August 27, 2004
Impeach Blair
ImpeachBlair.org have published the report, A Case to Answer [607 KB PDF file], written by Glen Rangwala - lecturer in politics at Newnham College, Cambridge - and Dan Plesch - honorary fellow of Birkbeck College, London - for Adam Price MP (of Plaid Cymru) and his group of 11 MPs. They will be tabling a motion when parliament returns to force the prime minister to appear before the Commons and defend his record in the run-up to the war.
More details in David Hencke's article in The Guardian. A slim chance of success, I expect - but good on 'em for having a go!
July 12, 2004
Information, it just wants to be free!
The Department for Constitutional Affairs has published a FAQ on How to use the Freedom of Information Act, which comes into force on 1/1/05.
Apparently, "almost all public authorities are already required by the Freedom of Information Act to maintain a 'publication scheme' which details all the information that authority will make available without being asked. This is usually available on a public authority's website if they have one."
One quick Google later, and we find the following:
The Ministry of Defence, with alphabetised Classes of Information. Conspiracy paradise?
The Department of Health - also with Classes of Information as required by the Act. Where has all our tax money gone?
The Treasury makes for fascinating reading (not), although I have to say I like the idea of a monthly statement of the Public Finances.
Parliament UK generates and publishes a LOT of material, of course, but they do reserve the right to withold information according to "parliamentary privilege", with no recourse to appeal...
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs may have some interesting stuff themselves but what caught my eye was their link to the Information Asset Register, where you can search [via inforoute] databases, old sets of files, recent electronic files, collections of statistics, research, etc. that have not yet been, or will not be formally published. Diamonds in the dirt?
The Home Office doesn't appear to be quite as forthcoming as I'd hoped, as "[d]ocuments may be edited where, in the view of the Department, particular information should not be disclosed because of confidentiality, unwarranted invasion of privacy, commercial sensitivity or other specified grounds, including the public interest." So, for example, we don't get to see how they worked out their £3billion figure for ID cards and the NIR - and they don't appear to publish their Finance and Accounting data, unlike The Department for Work & Pensions, The Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety, DH and the MOD (above).
Of course, it's not just Government departments that have a duty to disclose information, The Medical Research Council, for example, has a pretty comprehensive publication scheme with an equally comprehensive list of exemptions:
"Typically, however, information may be withheld in circumstances where it is subject to exemptions under the Act - in particular:1. Paragraph 21: Where information is reasonably accessible to the applicant by other means;
2. Paragraph 22: Information intended for future publication - where release would result in the premature publication of research;
3. Paragraph 27: International relations;
4. Paragraph 36(2)b: Prejudice to effective conduct of public affairs - where disclosure would, or would be likely to, inhibit the free and frank provision of advice, or the free and frank exchange of views for purposes of deliberation, or would otherwise prejudice, or would be likely otherwise to prejudice, the effective conduct of public affairs;
5. Paragraph 38: Health and Safety - where release might result in the compromising of physical or mental health, or personal security;
6. Paragraph 40: Personal information - which is covered by the Data Protection Act, involving the disclosure of personal information;
7. Paragraph 41: Information provided in confidence - by a third party;
8. Paragraph 43: Commercial interests - where release might result in breach of commercial confidentiality;Under Paragraph 12 of the Act, the Council reserves the right to refuse a request where the cost of researching, extracting or copying the information is disproportionately high."
Roll on New Year...
Postscript: for a Government that supposedly thinks 'joined-up' and wants to be a world leader in e-Government, why is there so much variation between all the websites mentioned above? There are obviously several different CMSs in play, some publishing as HTML, others in ASP, yet more using Cold Fusion - and that's without really trying to 'look under the bonnet'. If they can't even sort out their public-facing interface(s), what hope do they have of implementing, e.g. a 60 million person tracking system?
June 25, 2004
Knowing me, knowing you
Steven Mathieson's article in the Guardian, Knowing me, knowing you, is another of his well-informed pieces on government IT policy. He quotes David Cameron (Conservative MP) who refers to the Govenment's "excuse culture": they've got a whole bunch of problems - such as illegal immigration, serious crime, terrorism - but no real answers, so they offer a National Identity Register-backed ID card scheme as a "cure-all".
When a 'new' controversy arrives in the media (e.g. the Bichard report, regarding the intelligence failures that contributed to the Soham murders) you can bet your bottom dollar that the Home Secretary or Home Office will try to 'work in' a role for ID cards or the NIR - leading to massive 'feature creep' before the things are even implemented, and even more worrying erosions of personal privacy and the presumption of innocence. For example, it is now proposed that allegations be attached to people's records (i.e. stuff that may not even have taken place, let alone been committed by the individual) and that ID cards should in some way be linked to the Criminal Records Bureau.
Are we all, therefore, to be tarred with the same brush as the paedophiles and serious criminals? And do you *really* think that little plastic cards are going to prove a serious impediment to these people?
One of the more worrying aspects of all this is the sheer number of current and upcoming public (and private) sector initiatives designed to track us and our behaviour. Thanks to Steven for the following list:
Citizen Information Project: National Statistics plans a population register of everyone in the UK, providing one place to update details and improving government statistics.National Identity Register: to be built from scratch for the ID card scheme. To include every UK adult, subject to parliamentary vote, it will include reference numbers for databases such as national insurance and NHS numbers, and biometric measurements.
NHS Care Records Service: the national project has started building a patient database to contain summary medical records for all in England.
Coordinated Online Register of Electors: plans are to merge or link the electoral rolls managed by all UK local authorities.
Local databases of all children in England are being trialled.
The Department for Transport will produce a feasibility study on installing tracking devices in all vehicles this summer, allowing road pricing.
Private sector databases include credit reference agencies, loyalty cards and bank databases of card data.
If they are so interested in knowing me and knowing you, why is it they are not so keen on us knowing what they are doing... and why?!
June 17, 2004
Read this book, it's important.
Been reading Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto's 'The Mystery of Capital', in which he tries to and, to my mind, succeeds in explaining why capitalism has worked in the West and been pretty much a complete disaster everywhere else.
 | de Soto starts from the basic premise that "Capital is the force that raises the productivity of labor and creates the wealth of nations... it is the one thing that the poor countries of the world cannot seem to produce for themselves no matter how eagerly their people engage in all the other activities that characterize a capitalist economy" - which may cause most anti-capitalists to wince / fume / explode, but which (at least at this point in history) does seem to be a fair working assumption. He certainly puts it to good use. |
According to de Soto, the big problem in the Third World and former Communist states is that while the poor have plenty of assets - e.g. land, homes, businesses, etc. - these pretty much all sit in the extralegal, informal realm. His team's extensive in-country research points to this being the result of massively accelerated urbanisation and population growth, coupled with the inability and unwillingness of the authorities and their legal systems to adapt to the reality of how people are actually living.
Strikingly, when he has intervened in a country and made it much simpler for people to 'legalise' their businesses, tens of thousands of grey / black economy entrepreneurs have done just that, even though they then become liable to pay taxes on what are, in the main, very low margin operations! As it turns out, the cost of doing business extralegally is often greater than doing so legally - think protection money, high interest loans(harking), bribery, etc.
That's just a brief summary - if you're interested or intrigued, I really recommend you read the book. Now all I want is one that explains China's take on capitalism as clearly...
N.B. I think there are some strong analogies between ownership of physical property and ownership of data ('intellectual property'?) in an Information Society. I furthermore believe that if we don't own in law the data that pertains to us then, in a knowledge economy, we run the risk of becoming 'digitally disenfranchised' - little more than chattels ('good little consumers'!) of the States, banks and corporations that issue, control and trade our identities and personal information.
We're not there yet, thankfully, but there's still a large majority in the West who seem content to sleepwalk into a future that, by design*, looks like it could lack some of the basic human values that we have come to take for granted - like privacy, trust and the presumption of innocence. These are things that, unfortunately, have to be fought for again and again - and sometimes it's the very people that we have elected who try to take them away :(
*State and/or corporate.
June 12, 2004
Cannabis and crowd control
Paul Kelso's article in the Grauniad yesterday, It's OK to smoke dope, England fans told, reveals an *enlightened* approach to policing:
Lisbon police confirmed yesterday that England fans will not be arrested for puffing on joints on the streets of the Portuguese capital, following a recommendation from the Dutch authorities responsible for policing the English during Euro 2000.Four years ago England's match in Eindhoven, ironically against Portugal, passed off peacefully as many supporters took advantage of the Netherlands' liberal drugs laws. By contrast the game against Germany in the Belgian town of Charleroi was marred by violence, much of it fuelled by alcohol.
Still illegal over here, but now Class C, with (pain control) trials for Multiple Sclerosis and now arthritis underway - might we see a reconsideration of THC vs. CH3CH2OH?
June 11, 2004
Where's Blair?
Michael Crick is following up Tuesday's BBC Newsnight programme, which reported on The man who isn't there.
Apparently Tony Blair is persona non grata on his own Party's election literature!
There are rumblings afoot, and even a few questions being asked. But how long is Tony for this world?
Should we beware the 'Major scenario', i.e. the leader of your Party becomes a liability so has to be made to step aside, but this is done in plenty of time for the new leader to settle in to the public consciousness before the next General Election - allowing the Party to continue on regardless, under the delusion that it was 'just' the most extreme act(s and intentions) of their former leader that they have to avoid / disown?
June 07, 2004
They Work For Us
Glad I made it to NotCon (delayed somewhat by my trip from Cornwall and a distinct lack of Circle & District line) yesterday and very grateful to Lionel for letting me 'borrow' his badge so I could actually make it in to some of the afternoon sessions at what was a very well attended, even oversubscribed, event.
One of the highlights of the day was the official launch of TheyWorkForYou.com - now in beta test. I'll let them describe the site / service in their own words:
"Everything MPs say in the House of Commons is recorded in a document called Hansard.TheyWorkForYou.com helps make sense of this vital democratic resource and, crucially, allows you to add your own comments and links to the official transcripts of Parliament."
There are some extremely cool features, including RSS feeds of each MP's statements in Parliament and the fact that the parser and DB driving the site are Open Sourced. Tom Loosemore was actively encouraging people to build their own versions and tools - let the games commence!
I was reminded of the time I met one of the Hansard chaps - at a DTI PAT18 'consultation' in the late 90s - and suggested that BBC Parliament (I was working for the Beeb at the time) and Hansard could get together on the web & digital TV and turn British politics into American football... or a bloodsport! That particular idea was never going to happen, of course, but its great to see that the public will finally be getting access to the sort of resource that the all-too-powerful(?) lobbying groups have been using for years.
Many congratulations and much kudos to the whole team :)
Now if only some of the 'higher-ups' would remember that they are, in fact, Public Servants not our masters...
June 03, 2004
NotCon
As recently noted by The Register, this Sunday is NotCon '04.
If, like me, you've been keeping an eye on this event as it evolved you may be gratified to see what a fine line-up the organisers have arranged. In their own words:
BREWSTER KAHLE, board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and founder of astonishing informational resource the Internet Archive, will be joining an equally mind-boggling lineup of speakers at the UK's first NotCon event, a one-day conference intended as some sort of answer to all those cutting-edge technological get-togethers they're always having in the USA.Also speaking at the event will be top names from the UK's IT community and beyond, from IAN CLARKE (architect of the anonymous peer-to-peer network Freenet) to science fiction author and Creative Commons activist CORY DOCTOROW. The day will also mark the official unveiling of the latest grass-roots "e-democracy" project from the people behind acclaimed political involvement sites FAXYOURMP.COM and PUBLICWHIP.ORG.UK.
And that's on top of some practical (and some slightly less practical) demonstrations of social software, MP3 remixing, a debate on how weblogs can actually make a difference in the real world, a beginner's guide to "urban exploration", and how to tell the time using only a prawn sandwich and an old BBC Micro. Plus of course wireless internet access, and a bar, and the kind of people who actually ask for them in that order.
At only £4 per head (£3 concessions, including webloggers) on the door, I really don't know what's stopping you coming to Imperial College Union, Beit Quad, Prince Consort Road, South Kensington, London SW7 2BB this Sunday June 6th, from 11am to 7pm. I'll be trekking all the way up from Cornwall - Happy Birthday, Fi! - to catch what I can.
See (some of) you there :)
May 26, 2004
Too cosy by far?
The Cabinet Office announced yesterday that Ian Watmore, currently UK managing director of Accenture (formerly Andersen Consulting), will be the new head of e-government. This is, of course, after the Office of the e-Envoy is transformed into the e-Government Unit - with an attendant shift in emphasis and responsibilities [scroll down linked page]. No surprise at all to come across this, then:
"As part of this digital security infrastructure we envision that every constituent will have a highly secured, multi-purpose, government-provided electronic ID card that will serve not only for government purposes but also for online activities in the private sector - the electronic equivalent of today's ID cards [?!], passports, driver's licenses and social security cards." - p5, Accenture’s Technology Vision for Government [726 KB PDF file] (thanks, Charles)
Interesting also to note that on the same day Microsoft "also revealed it has been working with consultancy firm Accenture to offer customisable sets of software, strategies and best practices tailored to the needs of public-sector organisations".
No conspiracy, of course - just an entirely too cosy relationship between big tech, the mega-consultancies and government. It's the same old familiar names that to date have cost the British taxpayer billions in failed public-sector IT projects, and yet they just keep coming back for more...
Oh, and one final thing - over in the States it seems that Accenture are in the final running (1 of 3 companies) to be awarded the contract for George W.'s $10bn computer dragnet - unparalleled surveillance of foreigners (that's us folks!) that even the US General Accounting Office "has castigated as 'very risky', [warning] of significant management and oversight problems."
Let's just hope it's beyond them.
UPDATED 7/6/04: Martin Brampton as Devil's Advocate on Silicon.com asks Who wants government run like a business? He questions Tony Blair's claims both that Ian Watmore will play a "pivotal role ensuring that IT supports the business transformation of government" and that this will necessarily lead to "better, more efficient, public services".
May 25, 2004
Independent advice? Not from this bunch!
Thanks to SpyBlog for (my) first heads-up on yesterday's announcement of PA Consulting being awarded the ID Card scheme "Development Partner" contract by UK Home Office, also covered by The Register, BBC News, Silicon.com and others.
Any and all of the above are more informative the less-than-forthcoming Home Office Press Release, repeated on PA Consulting's site.
The runner up - Deloitte - must be upset, especially as they were still in the running last week when The Scotsman revealed in its article, Advice on ID cards came from firm 'set to make millions', that the company had seconded one of its staff to work at the Home Office advising on the planned ID card network from September until March...
But, as John Lettice kindly pointed out to me, this is not so much about Deloitte trying to pull a fast one as the fact that "uk.gov is so addicted to getting free help from the industry that there is no way it can make a measured purchase decision about anything". Secondments are apparently common practice in UK government IT, and PA Consulting themselves have in the past 'lent' members of staff to, e.g. the eEnvoy's department.
All the big players do it, so is there any wonder that the government often displays such wild enthusiasm for 'magic bullet' IT solutions? Or that the smartcard agenda is so deeply embedded in government thinking that, ID cards or not, we are ploughing ahead with a 'chipped' future with scant regard for the long term social or financial consequences?
I'll leave you with a quote from an article written back in 2000 by the Home Office's new 'Development Partner':
"Integrating customer access is a radical proposition, but as a focus for effort it offers the promise of being one of the single most visible and effective initiatives in improving public services yet undertaken by this Government, and possibly any other since the Second World War. And it could be rolled out in the lifetime of a single Parliament. All this, and it would actually save public money. If New Labour is serious about empowering the customer of public services and of adopting radical measures to get more from less, then focusing on customer access is one of the answers." - PA Consulting Group, 'E-nable the customer to join-up government'
No agendas there, then!
UPDATED 25/5/04: a timely reminder by Philip Johnston in the Telegraph of PA Consulting's shaky track record re. the 'shambolic' start of the Criminal Records Bureau in 2002. Remember when a whole pile of kids couldn't go back to school after the summer hols because their new teachers hadn't been police checked? Thank you, PA! And (for the record) Capita, too.
May 24, 2004
Behind closed doors...
...or at least very expensive* ones to get through!
So Mr. Blunkett wouldn't 'face the music' last week at the LSE [read Dr. Simon Moores' review in Computer Weekly, via White Rose & Trevor Mendham's UK ID Cards blog] but now expects his colleagues - and, by implication, us - to believe that he can overcome all the technical and financial objections to the ID cards / NIR scheme in a paid-entry briefing to the very people who stand to make the most money out of it:
Home Secretary David Blunkett, has told MPs his department has been working closely with the IT industry and is to offer a seminar quashing the technical and financial impact of the scheme "once and for all."The Home Office seminar is to be held with IT supplier, Intellect, and will take place at the Grange City Hotel, London on 24 May 2004. - 'Coalition of the unwilling: ID cards branded a faulty idea' on Contractor UK
*Today's Intellect event 'ID Cards: Next Steps' is sponsored by BT Syntegra, Sun Microsystems, Siemens Business Services Ltd & EDS and a ticket for a non-Intellect member would have set you back £464.13 - assuming members of the public could even have got one.
If Blunkett had these 'conclusive' arguments last week, then why could / did he (or a Home Office representative) not provide them to a PUBLIC meeting on the issues? If he didn't have them, then where did he get them from over the past few days?
All we are getting from the Government at present are assertions, made-up (and increasingly shaky) statistics, laughable guesstimates and a demonstration of almost unprecedented arrogance in their unwillingness to even participate in an open debate with opponents of the scheme, or even members of the electorate who express genuine concerns.
ID cards almost brought down the Australian Government in 1987 - does New Labour want to follow Blunkett and Blair over the same cliff? We shall have to see...
N.B. there are some encouraging noises being made in certain quarters of the Conservative camp, but do not forget that in 1995 Michael Howard (then Home Secretary) announced Government plans to bring forward a Green Paper setting out the various options available for a national identity card scheme - despite the fact that as recently as 1990 the Tories had said: "the government is not persuaded that the case for a voluntary identity card scheme has been made out, in terms of benefits either to the individual or the state" (HC Deb vol 146 c1302). - Charter 88 ID cards archive.
May 23, 2004
Dupe-checking and the mechanics of trust
Thanks to Irdial for clarifying the proposed use of a centralised database in his scheme, now christened ISLAND: "The centralized database of photographs held by the passport office is there only to do duplicate application checks."
Setting aside the (not irrelevant) fact that I am specifically trying to counter the Home Office's current ID card proposals - that they seem very reluctant to broadcast (e.g. correctly naming the Draft Bill!) would require the creation of a National Identity Register containing multiple biometric records for each of us - and ISLAND is tackling the UKPS biometric passport scheme, I agree that an/each issuing authority must have some way in which to check that multiple ID documents are not issued to the same person.
I further agree that such a database might be inoffensive, "...as long as no one other than the passport office has access to it and it is used for this single purpose of dupechecking." In the case of ID cards and even the UKPS database (as Irdial later points out, regarding access by the Intelligence Services) this is unlikely to remain the case.
The problem is that the (inevitable) cost and creation of just one such database and its associated checking software seems to have provided irresitible temptation for the Government to contemplate and even start to legislate for feature creep on an unprecedented scale - i.e. allowing multiple agencies access to one big database (at least partially because it will spread the cost - now there's Gov't 'efficiency savings' for you, and it *only* comes at the price of compromising every citizen's right to privacy!) and furthermore letting them do all sorts of different types of cross-checks - maybe even speculative trawls, in the case/cause of anti-terrorism, tackling serious (and not-so-serious?) crime and international intelligence - in an attempt to establish 'once and for all' a singular mechanism by which we can identify each other or, more precisely, by which 'we' can identify ourselves to 'them'.
I agree fundamentally and absolutely with what Irdial says towards the end of his posting:
In this way, if the initial seed population of passports are issued correctly, and the people are trustworthy, you can generate a large body of good passports because everyone swears that the persons that they are introducing to the British Passport are known to them. This sort of dis[tr]ibuted human trust is far better for people than centralized trust; it puts a high value on the British Passport, makes citizens take responsibility for the security of the system..."
If we are going to rely on technology to establish or confirm identity then we need to marry it to existing human / social methods - which have stood us in good stead for centuries, if not millennia! - in order to maintain and build real trust within our globalised Information Society. For all sorts of reasons, the spread of Information & Communication Technologies included, the link between rights and responsibilities has been eroded. We must, if we are to have massive ICT systems permeating our lives, ensure that they are designed so as to persist and promote the best values and aspirations of our culture(s) and not use them as an excuse to give in to our worst fears and paranoias.
Just because something is easy to do - as large-scale ICT increasingly is, despite past incompetence and failures - or even if it seems immediately obvious, does not make that the best way to do it! Biometric duplicate-checking (to the extent that the software is capable, i.e. NEVER infallibly) may be able to prevent multiple ID documents being issued to the same person but it cannot, even in principle, prevent the wrong person being issued with an ID document in the name of / with details taken from a person who is not already on the system.
Maybe what we need to do is redesign, strengthen and extend/propagate the mechanisms by which we can vouch for each other (a la 'PGP web of trust') in such a way that the authorities can focus their attention - both positive (i.e. support & services for the most vulnerable & isolated) and negative (e.g. surveillance and capture of criminals) - on those individuals who we, the people, EQUALLY AS INDIVIDUALS identify as being difficult to trust.
N.B. there are obvious problems with this if we (attitudinally) or the authorities (institutionally) differentiate between the 'trustability' - i.e. ability to both trust and be trusted - of different, e.g. ethnic groups or communities of interest & circumstance, but I hope and believe that there may be enough commonality and interchange between people in all walks of life - at least at the level of individuals, especially those who advocate the rights of others - to overcome the mob thinking, media-induced hysteria and Gov't / corporate FUD that currently seems to prevail.
Practically-speaking, therefore, it may be as important or effective (even necessary?) to come up with the design for an organisation that can provide and protect citizen identity as with a (demonstration of a) technological system for issuing ID documents. People form networks, too, and it is the rules that we agree in this (real) world that should determine / dictate the specification of technological rule-based systems not vice versa!
May 15, 2004
Is this how it goes?
Simon Davies' paper about Campaigns of Opposition to ID Card Schemes on the Privacy International site offers several insights and a superb in-depth analysis of the Australian anti-ID card campaign in the mid-80s:
"This movement, the largest in recent Australian history, forced a dissolution of the parliament, a general election, and unprecedented divisions within the Labour government."
Sounds like a good idea! Unfortunately, I somehow can't see that happening over here in the near future. One phrase in the closing paragraphs stands out for me, and cuts right to the heart of the matter:
"Trust within society would be replaced by the demand for formal identification."
In the current climate notions of trusting the government (and elements of the media) seem almost ridiculous. The arrogance and lack of principles demonstrated before, during and after the invasion of Iraq show a level of contempt for the citizenry - 1,000,000+ of whom marched to oppose the war - from a government that, despite holding a large majority in Parliament, fails to realise / acknowledge its crumbling mandate.
Tony Blair reckons he will be judged by history - I can tell him now that it'll happen a lot quicker than that!
[For crying out loud, the government are so desperate to get kids 'interested in politics' - i.e. actually voting - that they've even resorted to teaching 'citizenship' in schools. Fine, even admirable, in a healthy democracy - but a bit pathetic as a response when (young) people are turning off party politics in droves...]
But back to trust. Not only have a significant number of our leaders shown themselves to be untrustworthy (WMD anyone?), with ID cards / NIR they are demonstrating that they simply don't trust US (not the U.S. - if only!). It is terrifying that they seem to trust (a) the technology companies that stand to make untold millions out of an ID card scheme, and (b) technology itself more than the citizens that they are supposed to be serving.
In moving towards universal formal identification, the government will be further dismantling the 'human infrastructure' of society. ID cards won't ever help you get to know someone and yet, if implemented, will almost inevitably end up being used as some sort of transactional stand-in for trust - the irony being that, because they are based on technology (and therefore fallible), they are probably less trustworthy in the long run than actually getting to know a person. You know, build a relationship... have a conversation...
April 14, 2004
Thoughts on Gmail
[With reference to "Google's Gmail could be blocked" article on BBC News.]
It is not just that Google want to scan people's e-mail and insert targetted ads, but what other 'features' they might implement in future - especially given their current use of a very long-lived cookie that can effectively be used to monitor your browsing behaviour. Linking these two together gives a US corporation powers far in excess of those even some Governments currently *admit* to...
As to the argument about not having to use the service if you don't want to - a service like this is bound to be promoted heavily, and the downsides of it obfuscated. The penalties for 'innocence' or 'ignorance' are, in this arena, getting higher & higher - and the (non-technical) public is quite evidently not sufficiently aware of personal data security issues hence, e.g. the current level of identity fraud.
Yes it should be down to banks, companies, organisations, and governments to implement systems and offer services that do not compromise your personal information - but, get real, they are not perfect and they are not even (some of them) ethically motivated!