Government secretly plans a surveillance society (Wantage and Didcot Liberal Democrats)

Wantage and Didcot Liberal Democrats <info@wantagelibdems.org.uk>

Government secretly plans a surveillance society

February 8, 2009 1:38 PM

CCTV cameras

As reported in The Sunday Times today, our Labour Government is secretly building a new IT system to track every individual's travel history, under an unpublicised part of the so-called "e-borders" programme. The Coroners and Justice Bill, at present before parliament, also allows ministers to authorise exchange of sensitive personal information by public bodies. Said Lib Dem spokesman Alan Armitage: "These measures show a stalinist determination to know about and control every part of our lives. And democratic accountability is being eliminated. We just won't know what they are up to any longer."

Added Mr Armitage: "This Government has a poor history of keeping private data safe. How much worse will it be if this information is being freely passed around between civil servants who are to be protected against misuse of the information?"

The Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights has said that Britain had gone too far in helping to bring about a surveillance society. Commissioner Thomas Hammarberg said: "General surveillance raises serious democratic problems which are not answered by the repeated assertion that those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear. This puts the onus in the wrong place: it should be for states to justify the interference they seek to make on privacy rights. Data protection is crucial to the upholding of fundamental democratic values: a surveillance society risks infringing this basic right."

At present, we have the right not to be snooped on. The Right to Privacy is a basic Human Right guaranteed by Articles Articles 6 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights and enshrined in the UK Human Rights Act 1998. It is protected by centuries of Common Law and rules of of ultra vires which prevents a public body acting beyond its jurisdiction or remit.

The Coroners and Justice Bill would allow public records to be transferred to private companies on a minister's whim. At present, public bodies require primary legislation to authorise the transfer of data to another agency. MPs have to vote to allow it, but this Bill would allow ministers to do it without it ever going to a full vote of MPs.

Private information will be available to thousands of civil servants and bureaucrats to see and use as they wish. At the same time the Bill will take away any right to be protected against their misusing it. The Data Protection Act protects individuals from misuse of personal information, having it passed around willy-nilly or being stored inappropriately. The Government is trying to remove these safeguards.