Anthony Barnett (London, OK): NO2ID's invaluable email alerts have just told us this: The Ministry of Justice has launched an extraordinary coup. It is about to convert the Data Protection Act into its exact opposite, a means for any government department to obtain and use any information however it likes.
Hidden in the new Coroners and Justice Bill is one clause (cl.152) amending the Data Protection Act. It would allow ministers to make 'Information Sharing Orders', that can alter any Act of Parliament and cancel all rules of confidentiality in order to use information obtained for one purpose to be used for another.
This single clause is as grave a threat to privacy as the entire ID Scheme. Combine it with the index to your life formed by the planned National Identity Register and everything recorded about you anywhere could be accessible to any official body.
The Database State is now a direct threat not a theory.
Quite apart from the powers in the Identity Cards Act, if Information Sharing Orders come to pass, they could (for example) immediately be used to suck up material such as tax records or electoral registers to build an early version of the National Identity Register. But the powers apply to any information, not just official information. They would permit data trafficking between government agencies and private companies - your medical records are firmly in their sights - and even with foreign governments.
We urge you to write to your MP straight away - don't wait. The Bill is being rushed through Parliament, even as we write. It contains a number of controversial provisions, but to the casual reader appears mainly to be about reforming inquests and sentencing.
Request them to demand the clause be given proper Parliamentary scrutiny. This is something that will affect every single one of their constituents, unlike the rest of the Bill. There is a grave danger that the government will set a timetable that will cut off debate before these proposals - which are at the end of the Bill - are discussed.
With support for the ID scheme crumbling, even in the Home Office's own skewed polls - the last of which showed a 5% drop - trust in the government's handling of our personal information is at an all-time low.
A YouGov poll in the Sunday Times on 18th January shows that the public opposes these new powers by a factor of 3 to 1 *against*. 65% of people asked said they give government "too much power", only 19% thought not. The government can't pretend a popular mandate for what it is doing.
You can read the full email and all its references here
This will be a key issue at the Convention on Modern Liberty (hint: buy your tickets, they are selling quite fast)
