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It was very hard to pick the correct category for this particular (if outdated) story: European Union, Civil Liberties or Biometrics.
The Schengen system is the agreement between European Union Member States that allows individuals to cross borders without hindrance. However, in order to promote the freedom of movement, the EU set up the Schengen Information System, a database of individual’s names and details for the purpose of :
by means of an automated search procedure, to have access to reports on persons and objects for the purposes of border checks and controls and other police and customs checks carried out within the country in accordance with national law and, in the case of the single category of report referred to in Article 96, for the purposes of issuing visas, the issue of residence permits and the administration of aliens in the context of the application of the provisions of this Convention relating to the movement of persons.
The central database for this system is administered in Strasbourg by the French government.
With the accession of ten new Member States, and the inability of the Schengen Information System to be expanded beyond 18 national databases, it is envisaged that a Schengen Information System II will be established.
This new database will store biometric data and digital photographs, and will be integrated with the Visa Information system that will harmonise the issuance of such documents in Europe.
The institutions that will have access to this system include the national authorities of the Member States, Europol and Eurojust. The development of this database also gives an insight into how European policy works – decide the objective and then identify the laws which will legalise the system:
Appropriate legal bases for proposals to develop SIS II
8. It is necessary to identify the appropriate legal instruments in the treaties in order to develop the system, since the purpose of the SIS is to improve police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters (covered by Title VI of the Treaty on European Union) and policy as regards visas, immigration and free movement of persons (covered by Title IV of the EC Treaty). In addition, the Council decision authorising the United Kingdom to participate partly in the SIS, like the two Belgian-Swedish initiatives (a decision and a regulation) adopted by the Council on 6 December 2001, confirmed the mixed nature of the SIS [Official Journal L 328, 13.12.2001].
Note how even the United Kingdom is not excluded and future Member States will have to accede to this part of the acquis communautaire.
12. The Schengen acquis and its developments must be accepted in full by all States applying for accession. It should be noted that participation by an applicant State in the SIS is an essential prerequisite to lifting controls at common frontiers. If a priority of the new system is to allow the future Member States to integrate, it is necessary to ensure they are appropriately involved in the implementing activities. The Commission undertakes to inform them regularly of progress and invites them to send any observations they may have.
A reader alerted us to an interesting vote happening on the Radio 4 today programme: vote for a law to be submitted to the House of Commons. So far there are five ‘Law Ideas’ and at No.5 is a bill to allow homeowners to defend their property with any force, by deleting “reasonable” from the phrase “reasonable force”.
You can vote by phone or online, if you are registered with BBCi.
There are a substantial number of toll roads and bridges in the north-east of the United States. There are very few in the west. The difference largely stems from the fact that the east built a large portion of its road infrastructure prior to the federal government getting into road building in a big way subsequently to the second world war, and in the east roads and bridges were built and belong to a wide assortment of state governments, city and county governments, peculiar specially constituted government authorities, and the like, which often charge tolls, whereas most roads in the west were built with federal government money and tolls are not collected.
Traditionally, the toll roads in the east have collected tolls using the low tech method of collecting cash at toll gates. As well as being expensive to operate, this method negates many of the benefits of having modern, fast moving highways, because motorists must stop to pay the toll, and at peak hours must often queue for some time in order to pay the toll. For this reason, there has been considerable pressure to introduce electronic methods for toll payment. If a motorist has an electronic tag in the front of his car that can be detected electronically even if he is driving at speed, then it is not necessary to stop. The driver can drive straight through and gain the full benefits of the road, and the toll collection agency does not have to employ people to collect the toll or deal with large amounts of cash. (It also allows the toll to be easily varied depending on time of day or day of the week, which allows intelligent traffic management on the road).
It is obviously best if a single tag will operate all toll roads that a motorist is likely to want to drive on, so in recent years fifteen toll collecting agencies in the US North East have standardised on a single system, called E-ZPass. Normally some lanes of the road going through the tollgates will continue to allow cash tolls to be paid, whereas others will be reserved for electronic E-ZPass users.
Now, the benefits to both motorists and the road owners of such a system are considerable. But there are also privacy implications. If you use such a system, records exist of where you drove to and when. Security of these records was not been considered to be of paramount importance when the system was invented, and data is shared between 15 different governments and agencies even before the possibility of data going to other organisations is considered. But, if data exists, people will try to use it for other purposes, and this is what is happening.
This article describes how in a considerable number of cases police have managed to sepoena E-ZPass records to help in solving crimes, often in cases where people have claimed to be in one place but the records have revealed their car to be in another. → Continue reading: E-ZPass used for surveillance by various organisations in the US
The Toronto Star story is here.
Oh dear. It seems that they have a privacy “czar” in those parts. I don’t think of czarism as being especially good for the rights of the citizenry, do you? Be careful you don’t ever get accused of violating it, no matter how sensibly or blamelessly.
USA Today reports that face-scanning technology designed to recognize registered sex offenders and missing children has been installed in a Phoenix school in a pilot project that some law enforcement and education officials hope to expand.
Two cameras, which are expected to be operational next week, will scan faces of people who enter the office at Royal Palm Middle School. They are linked to state and national databases of sex offenders, missing children and alleged abductors.
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a tough-talking sheriff who has previously gained notoriety for his chain gangs and prison-issued pink underwear said:
If it works one time, locates one missing child or saves a child from a sexual attack, I feel it’s worth it.
Civil libertarians have raised red flags about the idea, pointing to potential privacy violations, and biometrics experts say facial recognition programs are not foolproof.
The Government has been considering congestion charging based on road use. Under the scheme every car would have a tracking device attached. Satellite technology would then be used to track every car journey made. This personal information would be recorded centrally and drivers billed for their road use.
The privacy implications are obvious and frightening.
It seems that in the wake of Big Blunkett’s ID Card announcement privacy concerns are now irrelevant. Transport Secretary Alistair Darling is to push ahead with the plan. Darling has appointed Professor David Begg to head a committee to consider the practicalities.
Begg said:
“It is now a matter of when, not if. Six months ago it was on the shelf, but Mr Darling is now very serious about it.”
BBC Report here
Cross-posted from The Chestnut Tree Cafe
The following editorial was published in the latest Economist:
The ability to recognise people automatically by analysing bodily characteristics such as fingerprints, faces and eyeballs – collectively known as biometrics – has long been a goal of technologists and governments alike.
Plans for large-scale projects to incorporate biometric scans into passports, ID cards and visas are now under way in several countries. From January 5th, America will begin scanning foreigners from particular countries as they arrive at its airports. Both America and Europe plan to start issuing biometric passports as soon as next year. Biometric ID cards are being adopted in Hong Kong and Oman, and Britain plans to follow suit. Politicians seem to be transfixed by the technology.
Typical was the recent declaration by David Blunkett, Britain’s home secretary, that biometrics “will make identity theft and multiple identity impossible – not nearly impossible, impossible”. This claim is absurd. Current biometric technology is not the answer to the world’s security fears.
→ Continue reading: Economist throws doubt on the current value of biometrics
Says Dave Barry of this apprehended spamster: “Let’s see how large his penis is.” Ho ho. And I know the feeling. I’m sure we all do.
A man alleged to be one of the world’s most notorious spammers was arrested yesterday in North Carolina, accused by Virginia prosecutors of falsifying the origin of e-mails that pitched low-priced “penny” stocks and home-mortgage schemes.
Jeremy Jaynes, also known as Gaven Stubberfield, of Raleigh, was charged with four felony counts as prosecutors seek to increase the heat — by bringing criminal penalties — on spammers for deceptive e-mail marketing.
The case marks the first time Virginia’s criminal provisions for spam have been invoked.
This anti-spamming activity has to be watched, I say, precisely because so many people are crying out for it, flaming torches in hand. What if they make a law which ends up making my Brian’s Fridays list illegal? This is the one that gets you invited to my last Friday of the month soirées. You know, just to make sure they get all the bad people. There are lots of complaints doing the rounds already that what Europe is doing about spam now is not enough.
They wouldn’t do that! Of course not. Ah but they might. More realistically, what they might do is make Brian’s Fridays list a bit illegal (like, I have to “register” it or something), and then they do me for not registering it when I say something truly hurtful about them, on a completely different subject. Or, I get scared that this might happen and refrain from my criticising. And other potential nuisance makiers do the same.
The Home Affairs Select Committee met last night to consider Big Blunkett’s plan to impose compulsory National Identity Cards on innocent British citizens. They interviewed some of the Home Office officials who have accepted responsibility for disassembling our civil liberties by implementing the cards.
Of particular interest to the Committee was the cost of the scheme. Despite being asked no less than seven times, the Home Office officials repeatedly refused to answer the question saying only that it would be between 1.3 thousand million and 3.1 thousand million pounds. As Committee Chair John Denham pointed out, a range of 2 thousand million pounds is unacceptably broad. And that’s assuming that the project remains on budget!
This unwillingness to talk openly about cost suggests a possible weak point within the Government. It is probably worth pressing this when contacting your MP or the media.
It’s especially ironic that the reason given for refusing to answer was “commercial confidentiality”. It seems that civil servants expect to have their privacy protected whilst they invade ours.
Full story in The Guardian
Cross-posted from The Chestnut Tree Cafe
Those wacky guys at b3ta.com, or one of their many photoshopping friends, did a paranoid, Robocopish rethink of how speed cameras might soon be operating. The pictures may still be there (left hand side – scroll down) but will soon be gone if they aren’t gone already. It’s that kind of site.
If you can’t find anything speed camera related, I’ve stuck the pictures up on my Culture Blog, so that White Rosers can give the matter some more prolonged thought. (I don’t think I’m allowed to stick up pictures here, which is probably a good thing.)
Today’s NYT on moves to restrict freelance surveillance:
CHICAGO
WHAT grabbed my attention,” said Alderman Edward M. Burke, “was that TV commercial when the guy is eating the pasta like a slob, and the girl sends a photo of him acting like a slob to the fiancée.”
The commercial, for Sprint PCS, was meant to convey the spontaneity and reach afforded by the wireless world’s latest craze, the camera phone. But what Mr. Burke saw was the peril.
“If I’m in a locker room changing clothes,” he said, “there shouldn’t be some pervert taking photos of me that could wind up on the Internet.”
Accordingly, as early as Dec. 17, the Chicago City Council is to vote on a proposal by Mr. Burke to ban the use of camera phones in public bathrooms, locker rooms and showers.
Trouble is, how are such infringements to be detected?
Most will assume this to be a surveillance debate. But might it instead not be a ‘too many laws’ debate? I have in mind a world in which everyone will break the surveillance laws routinely, but only Enemies of the People will be prosecuted for it. Just wondering.
Wired has an article about the Supreme Court hearing on whether the federal government should reimburse individuals whose sensitive data was disclosed illegally, even if no harm can be proven.
At issue before the court, according to privacy advocates, is how valuable privacy really is. The Privacy Act of 1974 prohibits the government from disclosing private information intentionally, without the individual’s consent, and provides for a $1,000 minimum fine if the individual is “adversely affected.”
Marcia Hoffman, staff counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, argues that Congress preset the penalty precisely because it is so hard to put a price on an abstract concept such as privacy or to prove damages in absence of others’ misuse of that data.
If your Social Security number is disclosed, there is a real potential harm from identity theft.
Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, argues that if the government has to pay damages in the case of any improper release of someone’s Social Security number, then reporters will not get information from the government that they need and are entitled to.
In the spirit of releasing as much information to the public as possible, we think he should have to prove damages. If every time you release information about an individual, you are going to be threatened with this $1,000-per-record fine, you are going to have agencies so nervous that they are going to err on the side of not turning over something. Government guardians of information are going to be way overly cautious.
And we would not want the government agencies nervous, would we…?
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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