Biometric data

Anthony Barnett (London, OK):   Like Jon, I am not convinced that the disk debacle will lead to the government abandoning its ID schemes. But one good aspect of the disaster is that attention is now being focussed on the database state and the holding of information rather than the ID card itself. Two recent posts on the issues are by Unity in Liberal Conspiracy and also Dizzy whom Unity links to. The techies are getting cross at the superficial politicisation and blame game that is underway. Nonetheless, guys, there is a system problem. It is one the government, ie Gordon Brown and his advisors and fellow ministers, must be aware of but have not been able to confront let alone solve. This is the chronic inability of the Civil Service. Fiasco is its maiden name. Don't forget, it was a government laboratory that made and released the foot and mouth virus earlier this year because, despite the funding being available, it could keep its drains in order - while making toxic and contagious viruses!

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): I have now found the link to the original Stephen Sedley January 2005 article in the London Review of Books, in which the Judge set out his full case for a national database of everyone's DNA. I must say I am bewildered by his calm assumption of the State's competence, here are some quotes, but see also the great Spyblog which points to the poor press coverage and, something I'd not heard of, family DNA trawling, "Even with today's technology it is not necessary to have every person in the UK on the DNA database for it to be a hugely powerful tool of oppression and discrimination and harassment".

Guy Aitchison (Bristol, OK): On the major issues of the day, Richard Littlejohn is almost guaranteed to take what I think is the most pernicious line possible. So I was surprised, and a little unsettled, to stumble across his agreeable polemic in today's Daily Mail. "Skating towards a Police State.." contains Littlejohn's reaction to the news that police chiefs want the power to take DNA samples off people for minor offences. Littlejohn contemptuously quotes one of the main advocates, Inspector Thomas Huntley, who suggests that failing to take a sample "could be seen as giving the impression that an individual who commits a non-recordable offence could not be a repeat offender." He rightly rips into the absurdity of this reasoning with his usual high flung rhetoric. Since "non-recordable offences" can mean anything from not wearing a seat belt to letting your dog foul on the pavement, "How are the police supposed to know that the little old lady allowing her poodle to poop in a public place won't go on to commit another Dunblane massacre? Or that the spotty youth casually dropping a KitKat wrapper in the gutter may not be the next Yorkshire Ripper. You never can tell. Better to be safe than sorry. Open wide." As Littlejohn correctly points out (and there's something I never thought I'd say), what the police now propose requires a "giant leap in terms of liberty and presumption of innocence". And yet another undemocratic move towards a surveillance state. But I can't help thinking that this is slightly inconsistent with Littlejohn's pathological hatred of, what he calls, "yumen rights". Isn't strengthening our human rights, and in particular our right to privacy, the only way of avoiding Littlejohn's nightmare vision of a police state, given that we are not going to go back to the days of Dixon in Dock Green?

David Clouter (Cambridge, LeaveThemKidsAlone): Yesterday it was reported that schools will be given guidance on how to use and store pupils' biometric information, such as fingerprints. UK schools started fingerprinting children in around 2002. Quietly encouraged by central Government, parents were not generally informed. By 2007, more than 5,000 schools have fingerprinted children, some as young as five. More than 20 firms now sell school biometric systems, some costing as much as £25,000.