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[log in to unmask]" type="cite">

I think the reaction to this current development should be proportionate. In any particular case, would the authorities be able to obtain the details of (for example) a Facebook user who was being investigated? I suspect that they would, and to be honest, I wouldn't object to that. If what the Home Office is proposing is a grab for all of the details on Facebook, this would be an overreaction. They almost certainly don't have the time or the resources to crunch through who is friends with who. I think it's a press release in search of a headline, and the important thing to do is to examine the legality of whatever mechanism the Home Office intend to use to get hold of the social networking data, when they actually try to do it. They may just be flying a kite here. 

 

One of the problems with all this is the fact that people are so sloppy with their own data. Look me up on Facebook, and you get a photograph of a kangaroo. I did take said picture, but that's as close as you get to my personal data. There's barely anything else there, because I joined Facebook to enter a couple of competitions. I gave them the bare minimum data, and ensured my page was not open access in case I wanted to use it, which I haven't done. Now, I won't bother.

 

All the people who have poured all of their friendships and images and connections into Facebook have taken a big gamble. They've trusted their personal data to an American corporation presumably subject to the Patriot Act, and which, if it doesn't have an office based in the EU may not even be subject to the DPA. Even if Facebook don't try to officially grab all the users' data again, the data itself is out of the Facebook user's hands. Another very well known internet company has its European HQ in a country outside the EU, and so isn't covered by the DPA.

 

We seem to live in a country where privacy is not the Government's first priority at the moment - but the public don't half make it easy for them.

 

Tim Turner

Wigan Council

 

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From: This list is for those interested in Data Protection issues [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Tim Trent
Sent: Wed 25 March 2009 12:27
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [data-protection] Social Networking Sites - More Big Brother?

"In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;

And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;

And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;

And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came...

I am the son of a refugee from Hitler's Austria (then Germany).  I do not think you are being unduly alarmist.


Phil Ogden wrote:

[log in to unmask]" type="cite">
I rarely stick my head above the parapet nowadays as my DP role has diminished.

I do so now because if "they" are making a list of names of the dissenters and connecting people who know people then I want in too (yes, I joined the "send all your emails to Jacqui Smith" day campaign on Facebook for just the same reason).

I do, however, have a serious contribution referring to something Tim touched upon with the "Nothing to Hide" brigade.

Nazi Germany - I can think of around six million people who thought they had nothing to hide, then times changed and they probably wished their ethnicity was a little less of a matter of public record. Previously witches were burned at the stake, this is no longer regular practice (apart from some remote parts of Africa) but who knows if sanity will prevail (history shows us otherwise).

Times change, and what's recorded cannot be un-recorded. In addition these "intelligence" systems rely on heresay and rumour, ephemeral connections that may have been totally innocent at the time, things done and said whilst blind drunk (the internet should have a breathalyser fitted as standard!), or even things done by other people in our name - we are not talking about burden of proof here, what's being stored isn't verified as actually being correct in content or attribution.

It just strikes me as desperately foolish to take the "nothing to hide" view - or am I being overly paranoid?

</end second rant!>

Phil Ogden.

Information & Research Officer
Neighbourhood Services
Leeds City Council

Tel: 0113 24 75630
Fax: 0113 24 75978

Address:
Environment and Neighbourhoods Regeneration Service
6th Floor West, Merrion House, 110 Merrion Centre, LEEDS LS2 8BB

http://www.leeds.gov.uk

Tim Trent <[log in to unmask]> Sent by: This list is for those interested in Data Protection issues <[log in to unmask]> 25/03/2009 08:19 Please respond to Tim Trent <[log in to unmask]>

To [log in to unmask] cc Subject Re: Social Networking Sites - More Big Brother?

[rant]
I wonder if there is some sort of correlation here.  The nations with the most stringent data protection and privacy regulations in the early days seemed to be those with a history of totalitarianism, surveillance and intrusion(!) into individual privacy.

Hungary was a Safe Haven, for example.  France, invaded by Nazi Germany is against whistle blowers.  Spain has draconian penalties.

And here we have the UK under Brown's New Labour, showing all the enthusiasms of Wilson et al for regulation and gathering of little bits of control and information.

And the "Them with nowt to hide has nowt to fear" reactions of the Daily Mail reader are in tune with this.

Whatever the popular press and knee jerk government may say, the world is no more full of terrorists now that it was of anarchists in 1914 in Sarajevo.  They just want to control us.  And we, the people who have delegated power to out elected representatives, put up with all this surveillance in order to save a couple of lives which could never have been saved anyway.

Terrorists look like you and like me.  They look normal until the moment them commit their acts.

Of course Ibrahim, you and I are now connected.  Your name is not classically Anglo Saxon, I'm the son of an immigrant, and you have expressed an interest over monitoring of terrorism in this manner.  Shall we both, now, expect a knock on the door because iof this email exchange on a public list?  Have we both committed yet another new crime of discussing terrorism while not not classically Anglo Saxon?
[/rant]

Ibrahim Hasan wrote:

Social networking sites like Facebook could be monitored by the UK government under proposals to make them keep details of users' contacts.The Home Office said it was needed to tackle crime gangs and terrorists who might use the sites, but said it would not keep the content of conversations. Civil liberties campaigners have called the proposal a "snoopers' charter".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7962631.stm

Regards

Ibrahim Hasan

Solicitor and Trainer
www.informationlaw.org.uk

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