My UK Friends, Freedom Not Fear

Ok lets go back and look at the reason for this....

Everyone who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their identity on a national database to ... combat terrorism and crime.

There are many many ways to get around this, so it will not combat terrorism or crime ! IT WILL FAIL ! So obviously there is a hidden agenda here.

What that agenda is we don't know but I strongly suspect the motive behind this latest intrusion is partly financial (commercial enterprises will pay handsomely for accurate personal profiles of our citizens) and state control.

GCHQ plans to do this by linking your ID with the phones IMEI number.

The IMEI is a number unique to every mobile phone it can be found by dialing the sequence *#06# into your phone.

Changing a phones IMEI number is illegal but a very simple process, it is done all the time for various reasons.

So again how can this stop the bad guys? ....it can't

Jonathan Bamford, the assistant Information Commissioner, said: “This would give us serious concerns and may well be a step too far. We are not aware of any justification for the State to hold every UK citizen’s phone and internet records. We have real doubts that such a measure can be justified, or is proportionate or desirable. We have warned before that we are sleepwalking into a surveillance society. Holding large collections of data is always risky - the more data that is collected and stored, the bigger the problem when the data is lost, traded or stolen.”

David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, said: “Given [ministers’] appalling record at maintaining the integrity of databases holding people’s sensitive data, this could well be more of a threat to our security, than a support.”

Big Brother article here

I object to the idea not because I object to the government spying (I dont like it but will accept it) but because its yet another policy that punishes the financial disadvantaged, you know the group of people that dont have a passport because they havent been abroad and probably also unlikely to have a driving licence. For the same reason they also unlikely to have a contract phone or landline due to bad credit rating and financial problems, so for them PAYG phones are ideal as they have no monthly costs.

So now they will be expected to go out spend £50+ on a passport just so they can buy a phone? for this very reason I want ID cards since the poor will get them free and will allow them to open bank accounts etc.

Tax website shut down as memory stick with secret personal data of 12million is found in a pub car park

Ministers have been forced to order an emergency shutdown of a key Government computer system to protect millions of people's private details. The action was taken after a memory stick was found in a pub car park containing confidential passcodes to the online Government Gateway system, which covers everything from tax returns to parking tickets.

Link to article

So does anybody think it is still a good idea for the government to collect and store even more of our personal data?