More data goes missing

Been a while since I updated, so here are a few things.It seems that even more data the government wants us to trust them with has gone missing.So far these incompetent morons have managed to lose the details of 25 million people (along with bank info and other sensitive data including the identities of people on the witness protection scheme), the DVLA lost data after they sent it to the USA, The DVLA in NI lost data they were sending to the UK mainland and the list is getting longer all the time.
Here are some links to read up on each thing.‘Up to 3,000′ patient records on laptop stolen from GP surgery
http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=35&storycode=4116547&c=1

NHS trusts lose patients` details of hundreds of thousands of adults and children http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7158019.stm
They still insist they can be trusted with our data and they still demand that they know everything about you and your family, yet the cant even look after the stuff they have already stolen from us. When will these pathetic people learn?

CCTV in public loos

There I was reading my own page, when I noticed I forgot to mention Virgin Trains spying on men in the loo. If you go into the male toilets in Wolverhampton train station you will notice there is CCTV between the washing basins and the urinals. Apparently this is for ’security’ reasons and to stop people vandalising the urinals or using drugs. The fact that drug users are just as likely to go to the cubical and shoot up, seems to have been ignored by good old Virgin. As for the urnial excuse. How can they tell who did what unless they are looking at the urinal and the lad peeing? Hence my claim that Virgin trains (the people who run the station) are spying on men in the loo.To this serious issue, it has to be asked if it is a good idea to get children to think it is perfectly OK to pee in front of a camera? I don’t and I think anyone that spies on the inside of a loo is rather sick in the head and should concentrate on porn rather than trying to brainwash the public into thinking it is OK to be spied on EVERYWHERE we go

Who knows who your calling?

I need to get on with some course work, but just before I do, thought I’d do a quicky on this privacy issue as it is very important. Records of who we call or text (and where from if using a mobile, this allows them to track your movements, handy if you want to catch people using a phone when driving) are to be kept for at least 1 year (came into effect on 1st October 2007). These records can include ’sensitive’ information, such as if you called Childline, Samaritans (when I contacted them about this, they could not care less about the fact so many people can find out-list bellow) and it seems even calling crimes stoppers will be recorded and made available to others. If you call people that provide ‘confidential’ help for rape/abuse, emotional problems, dug/alcohol addictions, battered partner or anything else, that too will be kept. So will calls to your doctors, GUM clinics and sex therapist if you have one. The content of such things will not be recorded, but the fact we called a sex therapist means you will in effect be telling everyone you have a sexual problem. Who will have access to this? How long have you got? It’s a big list (795 public bodies and quangos all with varying degree of access). I would love to give the complete list but I can’t find a copy BUT here are some of them: Police, Security services, 475 local councils, Food Standards Agency, Department of Health, Immigration Service, Gaming Board, Charity Commission, Royal Navy Regulating Branch, Atomic Energy Authority Constabulary, Department of Trade and Industry, NHS Trusts, Ambulance Service, Fire Service, Department of Transport and the Department for the Environment.I wonder if NHRC are on the list. ThinkPolice will need approval of a superintendent or inspector (like they will say no!). Council officials will only need permission from the authority’s assistant chief officer. Thousands of staff in other agencies will need to get approval from a senior official. In other words, our telephone privacy is screwed! There is no mention of court orders/warrants and the government decided to not consult on this in parliament (they did not need to, they can alter some laws anytime they feel like it).Think you have nothing to worry about? Last year the voluntary arrangement that was in place untill this law allowed 439,000 searches of phone recordsFrom 2008 (not sure of exact date) the same will apply to websites we access and who we email.More info about it can be found at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=484752&in_page_id=1770&ct=5

Opps, have we lost even more CDs?

I must be the last privacy campaigner on the planet to comment on the HMRC screw ups. Here are the basics25 million records along with names, address, DOB, partner details (if they have a partner that is) and Bank Info has gone missing (a junior official is being used as a scape goat while the people at the top get away with it. See, It’s not just the Met Office that keep the incompetent as senior levels).In August a laptop that contained sensitive financial details of about 400 people with ISAs was stolen after being left in a car (not sure if that was HMRC).In May HMRC posted details of the family tax credits of 42,000 families to other people after an apparent “printer error” (in other words a twit told the printer to do it wrong!).A CD-Rom that contained information on 15,000 Standard Life customers had been lost (a pension thing, I think).

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/money/consumer_affairs/article2917650.ece

Is this the end of the list? Probably not, yet for some reason they are still going ahead with the National Identification Register (the database behind ID cards), NHS database, child index……..Should we be worried? Hmmm, let me think on that one……..

Supermarket GPs

I think (could be wrong on this) the idea was to allocate about £225 million over 5 years to 30 deprived areas (deprived as in crap access to health care). The fact that better, more accessable services could be provided by taking on part time GPs and nurses to work evenings and weekends seems to be getting ignored.

Personaly I think the gov are only doing this to try justify the NHS database. Access to health care at weekends etc in the UK already sucks big time and this is just another example of the gove doing a PR thing (sounds better than it realy is).Do you realy want the likes of Boots and ASDA having your medical records? Do you think it’s a good idea to encourage sick people to go to supermarkets?

Random drug test on children?

This is a growing problem in the UK. It seems that some parents have so much distruss in thei children they like the idea of their children being forced to have random drug test. Schools seem to love the idea too, but concidering they liked the idea of introducing ‘virtual strip searches’ in schools, the fact they demand children take drug test is no surprise. The problem?

First of all the drug test (which is classed as a medical) is done in front of the rest of class by taking a check swab which is tested there and then (no privacy about the results).

It creates distrust. Teachers and parents are in effect telling their children they don’t trust them whilst the teachers and parents dont have to be tested.

They are not as reliable as they are promoted. At one school 2 pupils had a false positive, one of them failed because the toothpaste she used was confused with crystal meth.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=439743&in_page_id=1770&in_page_id=1770&expand=true#StartComments

The testing breaches medical ethics as pupils are being forced to have a medical exam (they have no way of saying no without being accused of being a drug user by the ‘nothing to hide nothing to fear’ crap brigade). The pupils that failed were model pupils, which made the school think something was wrong. I very much doubt the school would have thought that if the pupils were ‘trouble’ pupils. Personally, I think if a trouble pupil gets a positive, they will be treated very differently by the school. But then again, I could be wrong. I doubt I am wrong, but never say never. Teachers are now even allowed to search pupils, although it should be stressed that this search is no way near as bad as they have in the USA where schools are allowed to strip-search children (http://www.drugpolicy.org/news/092006search.cfm). There has already been a few instances of this happening even before this became law (might want to think twice about going to the States to stay if you have children).Then again, it could be worse. You could be going through Israel where morals and ethics dont seem to apply and security staff are allowed to abuse men, woman and children ( http://www.counterpunch.org/weir03152007.html). Personally I think it is sick that such abusers are allowed anywhere near adults let alone near children. I wonder if Israel would be offended if this was happening to Jewish children (Jewish children are exempt from being abused by the security services)? I’m not saying it should, It should not happen to anyone and I don’t have a problem with saying anyone that thinks this is OK, is sick in the head. It does raise the question, are the security services only doing this to humiliate men, woman and children in the hope they don’t return?

NHS database

There is so much info about this, it would be easier to check out the link bellow. If you are wondering who I am, I post under the name 'medical privacy'. If you click on any of my post, you can get a list of all the comments I have made about the 'data rape' the NHS are planning and a few other things.

http://forum.no2id.net/viewforum.php?f=58&sid=5adbb0b11b37864619586a8d52d0abb1