Tom Griffin (London, OK): The database state is moving forward at an increasing pace, but it is not inevitable, and there are far better ways of dealing with the identity challenges of the information age. That was the conclusion that emerged from a Rowntrees Governance Seminar on the subject at Westminster on Wednesday.
In the opening presentation Phil Booth of NO2ID defined the database state as "using computers to manage society by watching people."
He suggested that the Government has lost the argument on every front, but was developing a narrative that the database state is inevitable. Stressing that those who oppose the Government's plans are not Luddites, he said that, in many cases, their technical awareness exceeds that of the Home Office. Booth outlined three approaches that offer an alternative way forward.
- Information privity: a new sort of enforceable property right, with some of
the features of confidentiality, but extending to all personal information.
Analagous to leases of property or licenses of copyright, which occur
through a chain of contracts - each of which gives specific, limited rights
to the recipient, no rights to those outside the chain and direct redress
against any infringer. - Authentication/verification rather than identification: In many cases it is only necessary to verify one particular fact about a person. This can be achieved by a market of overlapping identity tokens, rather than putting all our eggs in one basket as with a centralised database.
- Precisely targeting problems: for example by allowing people to freeze their own credit records, a radical departure from the database state approach which has already been applied in the United States.
Booth stressed that individual control, choice and consent were vital principles: "In an information society things done to your data can have as much effect as things done to you in person. We have to get this right now."
Professor Keith Ewing of Kings College London raised a number of concerns about safeguards on surveillance, which is now being carried out on a massive scale by a surprising range of agencies. Whereas in most countries external authorisation is provided by a judge, in Britain this role falls to Ministers, with judicial scrutiny only coming after the event.
Although themselves inadequate, reports by the Surveillance Commissioner "paint a picture of a system that doesn't work very well" with covert human intelligence being collected without proper authorisation. Communications tapping is also on the increase with the Home Office now authorising 30 new warrants and 90 modifications a week.
Tony Bunyan of Statewatch described how such developments were being promoted across Europe, not least by the EU's Future Group, which sees the provisions for judicial authorisation in many member states as an obstacle to harmonisation. Increasingly decisions are being taken above even the European level, with the US playing a dominant role in a single Euro-Atlantic security area.
Henry Porter of the Observer said that the nation had dropped its guard in relation to the database state. "The media simply failed to pay attention to the pattern of Labour's legislation," which reflected a consistent diminishment of the individual in relation to the state. Parliament had failed to scrutinise key developments in areas such as surveillance cameras, the DNA database and retention of phone records.
"We are the anoraks of this particular crisis," Porter told the seminar. "We have to move out of this room."
In the general discussion which followed, several speakers felt that the database state was seen too much as a middle class issue, and that it was important to emphasise that working class people would bear the brunt of its impact. NO2ID's work with the trade unions was highlighted, along with the vote against ID cards secured at the TUC congress by the airline pilots union BALPA. There was also general agreement on the importance on moving beyond simple criticism towards advancing positive proposals like those put forward by Phil Booth.
Several participants grappled with the argument, frequently encountered by Henry Porter, that 'If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." Perhaps the best response came from Tony Bunyan, who said "If you have nothing to hide, you've led a very boring life."
