Anyone know more about this BT "uk identity verification" sch eme?

[Ian G Batten]

On Fri, 21 Mar 2003, Watkin Simon wrote:

> You're still using this generalisation of "the civil service".  I'm
> sure you're not suggesting that every civil servant from Sir Andrew
> Turnbull to a part-time Administrative Assistant who started somewhere
> yesterday is conniving against secret ballots or sifting through
> ballot papers (much in the same way they sift through phone records
> :o)

No, nor do I think that every member of the Metropolitan Police is
either a racist or was personally responsible for the failure of the
Lawrence investigation, but the subsequent reports were happy to talk of
the Metropolitan Police corporately.

> My question was, and still is, in the context you have used the expression
> what, or more precisely who, do you mean by the civil service?

I refer to the corporate values of the institution.  There may be
islands of good practice, but the fact that (for example) the Inland
Revenue explicitly permit people to surf through tax records and refuse
to take any action against it indicates that, corporately, the civil
service does not have a culture of respecting privacy.  Barcoding
election papers on the grounds that it's ``harder'' to then collect the
information is just total bollocks, and reveals a screaming contempt for
the citizen.  The only reason to do this is bulk collection of voting
records, and pathetic pleading that if only we were educated in why it's
good for us we'd all be happier is contemptuous.  Either the author has
no idea about the technology or assumes that no one has has any idea
about the technology: I'd vote for the latter.

If a civil servant violates the privacy of a citizen for fun or malice,
is any action taken against them?  If a manager presides over a system
in which many citizens have their privacy violated, is any action taken
against them?  Discuss, with reference to the Inland Revenue.  Now,
after you've stored my phone records, my email records, my voting
history, my web browsing and my medical history, could you tell me
anything that the civil service doesn't want access to?

Barcoded voting papers, indeed.  You people.

ian