Robin Wilton's esoterica

The ID Cards Bill is being debated in the Commons again today, following its second rejection by the House of Lords. I've learnt something new about the British parliamentary process. So let's recap: this Bill has been proposed by the Government and voted through the lower house; it's been rejected by the Lords, who proposed amendments; it's been back to the Lords again and rejected again, notably on the fundamental question of whether the Cards should be complusory or voluntary. So there's a basic disagreement between the two houses over the nature of the proposed scheme. What I've learnt is that that doesn't mean it will get debated at length in the Commons... Here's the relevant entry from the Parliamentary website: IDENTITY CARDS BILL: Consideration of Lords Message. [Up to one hour] For Amendments, see separate Paper. Proceedings shall, so far as not previously concluded, be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement (Order of 13th February). It will be interesting to see what they use the hour for.

This is something which started out as an inkling, grew to be a conjecture, and is gradually developing into a theory. I've only been looking at the privacy issue for a relatively short time, especially compared to the likes of Caspar Bowden and Simon Davies. It seems to me, though, that the most vocal privacy advocates are currently viewed with the same mixture of bemusement and mistrust as Jonathon Porritt and other Green campaigners used to be before Green issues became a mainstream, accepted part of political reality. I'm conscious that the approach to privacy varies widely from country to country and from legislation to legislation. I'm also conscious that views differ as to whether privacy is a matter for legislation, industry self-regulation or 'good practice'; that three-layer model is increasingly the context in which I consider the definition of identity and privacy requirements. Let's look at an example which shows how differently privacy can be viewed; in this case, in the US and the UK. I'm not making any judgement about whether either of these approaches is 'right' or 'wrong', just considering the differences. The example I'm taking is that you know someone who has been convicted and sentenced to a jail term; you want to get in touch with them, so you go online to see if you can find out where they are being held. If you're looking in the UK, you might go to the HM Prison Service site, where you will indeed find a Prisoner Location Service. Provided you know the prisoner's name and date of birth, they will agree to relay your written request to the prisoner and, if the prisoner agrees to it, put you in contact. So it's not that convenient; it's hard or impossible to find someone if you know them well but don't happen to know their date of birth, and nothing happens in real time. You also won't get any details unless the prisoner consents. If you're looking in the US, you might go to the Federal Bureau of Prisons site, where again you will find a Prisoner Location Service (or in this case, Inmate Finder). Here, though, the search itself is online, and you can enter any name/names you like. It will return any matches, giving you name, age, sex, race, register number, projected and actual release date, and location (the latter usually as a hyperlink). It is all extremely convenient, but of course it doesn't do much for the prisoner in terms of privacy, and nothing in terms of consent to the release of this information, some of which is personal. Incidentally, I was fascinated to see one prisoner (released in 2000) who went by the name of John F. Doe. The F stood for "Fiftyone". Maybe he was named after a state. While we're here... Apart from John Doe, the other name I tried on the search engine was that of Zacarias Moussaoui, whose sentencing trial is under way in Virginia*. Reading between the lines of that report, it looks highly likely that some of the testimony used against Moussaoui will come from confessions obtained in Guantanamo. 'Written testimony from six witnesses described by the judge as "enemy combatants" held by the US military will be heard at the trial as sworn verbal testimony'. An earlier US request for the deportation of a terror suspect from the UK was declined by authorities here on the grounds that a trial 'including evidence likely to have been obtained by torture' would not be a fair one. And on the subject of fairness, the judge in Moussaoui's hearing had the following to say: "In making this very difficult decision about punishment, you must be guided by reason and your sense of justice and not by bias, prejudice or sympathy for or against the defendant or the victims," Judge Leonie Brinkema told the jurors. I don't think I could meet those criteria. How would the thought go...? "In deciding whether this prisoner should be put to death, I will be guided by reason and my sense of justice, and yet I will not take into account any feelings of sympathy with the victims or bias against the defendant (or vice versa)". That's a tough bar to jump! *Footnote: Well, there you go, that's the Internet for you. This post is out of date before I finish it.... Judge Brinkema may have to alter the course of the trial, because of admissions that the prosecution broke court rules on the 'coaching' of witnesses.

Candles are being lit today, March 13th, in memory of the children and staff who lost their lives in the Dunblane Primary School ten years ago, when an armed man entered the school and shot dead 16 children and their teacher. Another two teachers and 12 children were injured. Ten years on, the memory of this event still has the power to chill and shock any parent. Those feelings are, in many, mixed with a sense of anger and frustration that one of the Government's primary measures proposed in reaction to the killings still has not been implemented. Within a year of Dunblane, the government had legislated to ban the private ownership of handguns, and had legislated for a National Firearms Register to be set up; the Register would enable the different police forces across the country to see a consolidated view of firearms registrations nation-wide, as opposed to seeing only those registrations processed by their own force. That register is still not in operation. As far as I can see from a quick search, the context is as follows: There are 43 police forces in England and Wales, 8 in Scotland, and 1 for Northern Ireland, but a single national firearms registration process (though forces may impose further local criteria at their discretion). The registration process needs to establish and document (among other things), each weapon involved (type, calibre and serial number), and also to record the ammunition type and calibre, including the maximum quantity which may be bought/kept at any one time. There would also, presumably, be a record of the owner's details, stated purpose for owning the firearm, and any infringements or other factors which might be relevant to subsequent renewal of the licence. One could also posit that the information flow here would be two-way for 'read-only' and one-way only for updates --- but that's an assumption. But all in all, this looks like a distinctly finite problem, and certainly the requirement to consolidate some data from 50-odd repositories would not be unusual in any large organisation. This issue has been rumbling on for years: back in 2000 (four years after the shootings and three years after the resulting Act), Labour peer Lord Corbett raised calls for the system to be put into operation. Here's a related article from 2002, in which the (delayed) system was promised for 2004; at that stage (2002) some 5 years had been spent on a first attempt, at the end of which the Home Office scrapped the project, saying: "The original tender did not provide a satisfactory solution for the police service. "A fresh approach was needed to produce a more advanced technological solution." And here's another from 2005 in which the Home Office noted that the system being developed was "extremely complex and technical". There is understandable anguish and frustration on the part of the Dunblane parents and others who have lost friends or relatives to gunshots. Hazel Blears (Home Office Minister) and Geoff Hoon (Leader of the Commons) have both re-iterated the government's 'full commitment' to a National Register. Opposition MPs are, of course, questioning whether the government is placing enough of a priority on implementing this measure relative to other public sector programmes. In retrospect, it looks as though the project has suffered from problems in the procurement, architecture and development phases, and from an over-all mismatch between the 'citizen incentive' for something to happen and the government's ability to translate that into a working system. The National Identity Register (and corresponding ID Card roll-out) will be a larger-scale project, involving the majority of the population, collecting more data in more places, and generating immeasurably higher throughput in terms of authentication and update requests. It would seem perverse to assume that it will be faced with fewer or less challenging obstacles than the Firearms Register project.