“192a34b12fx, will you stop playing on that computer and come downstairs for your dinner?”
Anyone who’s got even the slightest familiarity with the Bible’s last Book, Revelations, will likely be aware of the section wherein everyone in the ‘end days’ is forced to have the Beast’s number stamped on their foreheads, with those refusing to comply, according to John, denied food and made to suffer. Most of us don’t buy into the idea of this particular tale being ancient prophecy, though we may or may not have time for other prophecies or predictions. Some people even started suggesting, unsurprisingly in the 1960s, that the writer of Revelations was having a really manic trip after consuming something dodgy.
But then we entered the age of ID cards and databases, CCTV, Internet cookies, and electronic voting. Eventually governments around the world cottoned on to this cyber-malarkey and realised they could solve every problem by turning to the likes of Microsoft for solutions instead of using the old-fashioned, tried-and-tested remedies of listening to the people and providing money and resources for doctors and nurses, farming, education, and policing.
Now the UK government intends to assign every English child with an identifying number and a database entry of their school qualifications. The database will include a mini-CV which employers will be able to check. That’s assuming we don’t stop this latest Big Brother initiative, if for no other reason that we’re told it will cost the taxpayer £45m. Anyone remembering how much we were originally told ID cards would cost will, of course, already be quadrupling this not-inconsiderable sum in their heads and gasping in horror at the proposed outlay.
Most of the information on the database is already held somewhere, but not in one convenient place for enterprising hackers to get hold of. We don’t need to be frightened, however, because we all know the UK government has proven itself more than capable of protecting our data.
Don’t we?
‘Protection of an individual’s data will be given the highest priority,’ says the Minister for Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education Bill Rammell.
Presumably Mr Rammell has spent the last six months holidaying on Mars, and has failed to observe how expertly this government loses laptops, print-outs, and CDs. It has a real talent, a rare gift.
Put it another way, if you lent your neighbour a book, and he lost it, and then, against your better judgement, you lent him your bicycle, and he broke it, what kind of fool would you be if you then handed him the keys to your car on the promise that he’d get it back to you intact by the end of the day?
Opponents of the never-ending quest to get every bit of our personal information into one almighty database can’t, it seems, rely on children’s advocates to back them up in fighting this latest move. ‘I’m a little puzzled by the fuss over this,’ says Terri Dowty, director of Action on Rights for Children. ‘We’ve had Individual Learner Records for five or six years, and as databases go there are twenty or so other databases for children many of which are worse.’
That’s comforting to know. Did you? How many of us did? What is on these other ‘worse’ databases for children? Where are they stored? Are they maintained by British companies, or held on servers abroad?
‘There are big questions over security and function creep,’ admits Dowty, strangely confirming a sense of not actually being puzzled at all. ‘And, of course, at rock bottom it is a question of whether we can trust this government with any of our personal data.’
By the way, what the hell kind of politico-speak in a public statement is ‘function creep’? What is that in layman’s terms?
Dowty added that such a database could be useful, but failed to explain how. Dowty also questioned whether it should be a priority when so many other services for children are suffering major budget cuts. Well, yes. Our social services across the country could do a lot of good for children in desperate need of help with £45m added to the coffers, as could our schools, colleges, and universities in trying to give our children quality education and qualifications that mean something and are genuinely useful in the workplace.
But rest assured this government always spends our money wisely. It has done a wonderful job in Iraq, and the experience there means we can look forward to any demolition jobs at home going a lot smoother and faster. Hospitals and schools failing to reach their central government targets can be bombed using our tried-and-testing, highly precise, remote weapons systems (just aim them 300km to the left or right of the target).
The Child Benefit data wasn’t lost at all, silly. It was just put somewhere safe so that our leaders didn’t lose it. All they have to do now is remember where they put it.
Those who think all this wastefulness and insanity began with the ID card scheme being cooked up would be wrong. We can’t even blame 9/11 as being the trigger. Anybody living within view of the Millennium Dome, now re-modelled as the O2 Arena, will remember how much of our money went on that white elephant before it was sold off at a huge loss. O2 now makes roaring profits thanks to the government’s generous disposal of the thing we paid for.
Next time you wonder why your council tax goes up year after year while all the essential services in your area are cut back further, well don’t. You know why. The money is going on brilliant schemes imagined by brilliant people. So don’t ever question their wisdom, okay? Remember they are your betters, and that everything they do, they do for you. Be grateful and don’t forget to vote for them next time round.
Yeah. We still have that damned inconvenient ballot box every once in a while. Still, a switch to postal and electronic voting should allow for some well-intentioned creative interpretation of the results.
Now, don’t you feel much more at ease with the world? When you stop thinking and caring you feel a whole lot better. But don’t take my word for it. Ask a politician. You can always trust them. But you could get a head start on the latest government plan this summer, if you’re keen: when you’re stitching name tags into your child’s gym shorts, shirts and school bags, keep one to the side and, when you’re done, grab hold of the youngster and stitch the last remaining label firmly and squarely to the middle of his or her forehead. Just in case they ever get lost, or a future employer wants to confirm they are who they say they are.
You know it makes sense.
UPDATE 02.03.08: This article today received a most welcome comment by Terri Dowty, mentioned above, some references to whom have now been struck out because it would appear The Register’s original story which prompted this blog entry misrepresented Terri’s views by selectively choosing only bits and pieces to quote. Those snippets seem to intentionally paint a picture that is in complete opposition to Terri’s real views. I urge you to read Terri’s comment below as well as what I wrote. There is a lot more to this story, and Terri makes complete sense while revealing further database horrors that have gone on for some time.
It is one thing in journalism to edit interviews for length while ensuring truthful representation remains the guiding principle; quite another to treat a person’s expressed views as being akin to fridge magnet letters you can jumble up and rearrange to make of them whatever you want. My own apologies to Terri for assuming fair treatment from The Register was a given.
tags: children, civil liberties, databases, government, lies, propaganda
9 comments on ““192a34b12fx, will you stop playing on that computer and come downstairs for your dinner?””
February 15th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
I often say people frighten me far more than ghosts or UFOs ever could. It is a scary world we live in right now particularly with these id scams that are wide open to much abuse as was demonstrated when that database went missing. It made the news over here too.
February 15th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
“Function creep” - we’ve done and/or taken more than you originally gave us permission to do and/or take.
Jami’s last blog post..Making out
February 16th, 2008 at 9:34 am
Sue: I’d rather meet Jacob Marley in chain drag on a cold winter’s day than sit down with a Labour politician seeking to convince me his or her party is doing what’s best for us. Yesterday it emerged they’re now thinking of making deliberately complex forms for smokers to fill in annually and pay a £10 fee for a licence to smoke. What wondrous schemes they come up with! If only they could tackle serious crime as effectively as they target ordinary, often working class, folk… x
Jami: Thank you! This surely means the governments of your country and mine are function creeping all the time?
x
February 18th, 2008 at 12:22 am
I posted about this on Thursday but you always come up with better titles and wordage
Yeah this is yet another thing I hope the government don’t do, from what I read it’s been planned for a bit but has been kept quiet. Well the tale is out now and the big question is, can we stop it happening???
I for one hope so!
Beautifu1’s last blog post..Blog Your Blessings Sunday
February 18th, 2008 at 9:43 am
The title is fun, isn’t it? Serves the point being made well enough, I hope!
Yes, we can stop it happening. Personally I doubt Labour will lose the next General Election, but the best hope is for a hung Parliament where the different parties actually have to negotiate ways forward rather than dictate them, as we’ve had to suffer ever since Thatcher won her first national victory. Major’s second, elected, term was, of course, with a fairly narrow majority which led to a weak government irrespective of where we stand on the (mostly imaginary these days) Tory/Labour divide.
I’m likely to vote Green unless there’s no candidate standing locally. I don’t agree with all their policies but they have considerably more spine to deal with the most pressing problem of them all–our potential extinction, and our ongoing destruction of the planet. If there’s no Green candidate, I won’t vote Labour, can never bring myself to vote Tory, and so I’d see who else was standing and consider my remaining options.
A hung Parliament makes changes slower, sees a lot more healthy debate, and ensures a middle ground of compromise has to be reached in order for policy to be determined. To be honest, given the challenges we face with global climate change, a government with the equivalent of a War Cabinet composed of different party and non-party interests would be, to my mind, desirable from this point forward. x
March 1st, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Sorry - I would have commented sooner, but have only just seen it. I am the vague and wishy-washy Terri Dowty whose comments to the register were pared down in that annoying way publications have of not actually misquoting, but removing all the important bits.
I said I was puzzled that journos were latching on to this story when they have completely ignored the National Pupil Database, which collects 40+ items of sensitive data each term (without any kind of consent) on every school and nursery pupil, and every child in any kind of day care. It has been around since 2000.
I also said that, while some journos are at last vaguely up to speed on Contactpoint (though it took 3 years of briefings, and they still trot out some of the old myths) it’s proving impossible to interest them in eCAF - possibly the most pernicious database idea ever seen. It will hold the in-depth profiles (complete with subjective judgements of practitioners) on every child and family seeking any public services beyond basic school and GP. That’s a minimum of 50% of children by the govt’s own estimate.
There’s a string of youth justice databases that hold predictions of likely criminality - and have done so for several years. There’s Connexions that holds data on every teenager (since 2000) including personal assessments. There are the plans to join up health and social care records. There are ‘whole pupil records’ held in schools that record even the most minor alleged disciplinary infringement. There are police databases that record ’sub-crime’ like playing ball games in public places, a national obesity database that holds height and weight details of every child, school systems that record school meal choices or allegations of bullying… I could go on for ever.
Suddenly journalists discover the wheel: they get hugely excited about a ‘new’ database that will bring together chunks of two other databases that have been around for almost a decade. Ironically, it’s a database that govt is proposing should be under the control of the person whose record is on it. That’s a first. Yes, I have trouble believing that - hence the reference to function creep. I’m sure all kinds of other uses will be found for it, but if it *is* limited by statute and if ‘learners’ really *are* allowed to edit their profile so that it’s effectively just a cv, then it could be quite useful. It’s just a silly waste of £45m when there are a lot of other priorities.
I’ve said all of this and more to journos over the past few years. So have all the other civil liberties orgs. Can you begin to understand how baffling it is to see column inches given to MIAP, and how frustrating to see one’s explanations reduced to a few bland words ? This whole MIAP thing is, I dunno, rather like a policeman focussing on someone’s flat tyre in the middle of a multiple pile-up on the motorway.
I’d use one of your emoticons, but I can’t see one with sufficient steam coming out of the ears.
March 2nd, 2008 at 8:15 am
Terri, first of all, thank you so much for your comment. It gives you an opportunity of redressing the situation you describe. I suggest you contact The Register because of your having been misrepresented–your feelings and views on these databases are clearly quite different when you compare the ‘edited’ version of what you said with what you say above. And the knowledge you share above is as frightening if not more so. In common with 99 per cent of people, I suspect, I had no idea about this concept of criminal potentiality and sub-crimes. It’s horrible to near-write-off children for their whole lives in that way.
I was both moved by what you wrote, and will amend my article to point people to your comment so they can get all your words and not just some of them. Thank you. x
March 2nd, 2008 at 12:59 pm
To be fair to the Register, I don’t think it’s wilful misrepresentation and I’ve generally found them a lot better than most. The real problem is that journos everywhere have simply not kept up at the back there. The subject is complex, and so when they are ringing for a quick quote in a limited-space article, they have no sense of context in which to place the latest development. It also leaves those of us asked for comment spluttering: “where the hell do we start?”
It’s not for want of trying - we (by which I mean ARCH and all of the other orgs working in this area) have been sending out press releases, briefings etc for years, but most simply vanish into the ether. This lack of press understanding has allowed the govt to get on with building comprehensive coverage of each child’s (and family’s) life.
We’ve just produced a joint briefing that goes right back to basic factual info, and we’re at last beginning to see some results - although very late in the day.
If you’re interested to see a copy to get an idea of what’s going on, it’s online at: http://www.arch-ed.org/docs/PR%20Briefing%20plus%20logos%20080218.doc
Thanks for amending your post - I really appreciate it.
March 3rd, 2008 at 7:49 am
I will check that out, thank you. As for technology journalists, having been one myself I know it’s hard to keep track of everything sometimes but then, while data issues are complex, I think if tech journos don’t or can’t contextualise them, then we’ve lost the battle. What people don’t understand, they don’t challenge. x
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