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Database State looms
• BURIED deep within a plain-sounding Coroners and Justice Bill radical and dangerous data-sharing powers are being rushed through Parliament.
These would allow government ministers to sign data-sharing orders to take any private information about any and all of us, collected by any organisation for any purpose, and hand it to anybody of their choosing, with no debate in Parliament. The Health Minister could, for example, access Tesco’s club card database to see who’s buying more wine than average or buying cigarettes in a household with children.
With government plans to record details of every email you send, every website you visit and every phone call you make, this legislation creates the nightmare Database State, where everything about you can be known by every branch of government, and organisations of their choosing, without your consent and for any reason.
The Data Protection Act, which ensured our personal data was not passed to a third party, will now be meaningless and useless. We truly will have “nothing to hide” and everything to fear. We won’t be able to trust any organisation to keep our personal information out of government hands. The government has admitted it cannot keep information safe from identity thieves, errors, scam artists and corrupt officials.
This Bill marks another significant step towards the total removal of our privacy. I urge readers to alert their MP to Clause 152 in the Coroners and Justice Bill and to take action to safeguard our personal information from the prying eyes of officials, marketing executives and identity thieves.
CAROLINE DAY
NO2ID Highbury co-ordinator
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