Category: News

Well the political conference season is nearly over, a General Election is round the corner, and no major political party (apart from the Scottish Nationalist Party) has a policy to establish a framework of privacy protection. The result, I fear, is that we will continue onwards as before. All the English opposition political parties seem to think that if they do something like scrap the ID Card scheme, drop the NHS central spine database etc then everything in the privacy

Home Secretaries down the ages always say that when they sign a warrant that allows the authorities to intercept the content of a communication, they consider the matter very seriously. And in fact Section 5 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) requires the Secretary of State not to issue an interception warrant unless he believes, that the warrant is proportionate and necessary either (a) in the interests of national security; or (b) for the purpose of preventing or

It’s Wednesday, so how about an exercise in reading the political runes? Given the recent pronouncements by leading Government politicians, what do you think is going to happen to the ID Card scheme and its related database, the National Identity Register (NIR)? Is the ID Card scheme on the back burner (Lord Mandleson) or is it a necessary frontline service that needs protecting from the cuts (Mr Brown)? Clearly, the NIR is not dead because the ID Card Scheme Commissioner