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Climate change protest starts tonight

Friday, March 20th, 2009

CLIMATE change activists who are planning a protest in the City at next month’s G20 summit are to begin their demonstration tonight.

More than 1,000 activists are expected to arrive in Bishopsgate for a “weekend of activity” ahead of a plan to camp out for the duration of the convention of world leaders.

The group Climate Camp will spend this evening playing hunting games to familiarise themselves with the area and tomorrow there will be a day-long seminar discussing the problems of carbon trading.

On Sunday, the protesters will hold action-planning meetings involving legal training, direct action training and other planning for 1 April.

At exactly 12.30pm that day - the day before the summit - the group will descend on the European Climate Exchange in Bishopsgate, setting up camp outside the offices for 24 hours of “flashcamping” protest and demonstration.

Their aim is to “transform the financial district, both symbolically and visually, into a physical manifestation of our desired worlds, with wind turbines, tents, and action plans”.

It is believed it will be one of the biggest demonstrations yet by the group, which has become notorious for carrying out direct action campaigns protesting against the expansion of Heathrow airport and Kingsnorth power station.

Climate camper Gary Still said: “The Climate Camp is about action, education and sustainability, and that’s exactly what we’ll be doing in the Square Mile on 1 April.

“The G20 want to get the world back onto the track of endless economic growth, and that will take us careering into the face of runaway climate change.”

The protesters blame carbon traders for being complicit in causing environmental problems. The activists’ recruitment advert says that “by creating a brain-bending system of carbon pollution licenses, fossil fuel companies and trading firms have found a way to keep on churning out global warming gases and to reap huge windfall profits at the same time”.

It adds: “They are speculating with our climate and the very future of life on earth - and our governments are cheering them on. Don’t let them get away with it.”

On 2 April, as world leaders meet at the ExCel centre in Docklands, tens of thousands of protesters are expected to descend on the City with police planning the biggest street security operation since the May Day riots nine years ago.

More than 5,000 Met and City of London police officers will be deployed to maintain order and protect foreign leaders.

Climate camper Rachel Greenthorpe said: “We’re going to be in Bishopsgate rather than the site of the actual G20, because we have a different agenda.”

On 28 March, thousands will march through London on the Put People First campaign challenging the G20 on the global financial crisis.

Benedict Moore-Bridger

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Google Street View - an invasion of privacy?

Friday, March 20th, 2009

By Alice Wyllie |

IT HAS already revolutionised the way we search for information, find images or plan routes, but now Google has gone all Big Brother on us, with the launch yesterday of Google Street View in the UK, a service that allows you to view 360-degree images of the road outside any address on virtually any street in one of 25 cities, including Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen.

This is Google Earth, but at street level, with every fag butt, discarded kebab and pool of vomit on show to the world, as well as a few less savoury things. How this service will be of much real
use is notimmediately apparent when you log on, but it’s certainly rather good fun.

Available in nine countries worldwide, the online service was first launched for the US in 2007. You can type an address or postcode into Google Maps and find a static photograph of it, or you can drag a little wobbly orange icon called ‘Pegman’ (he looks like a clothes peg) across the map and drop him wherever you like (as long as the street is highlighted blue).

An image of the area will pop up and you can then use arrows to rotate it. If you’re using Google Maps to plan a journey, your route will be accompanied by moveable images to ensure you don’t get lost.

Like most first-time Street View Googlers, I initially search for my own flat, swivelling the view to see the regulars outside the pub across the road enjoying a sly fag. These innocuous locations prove more fun than a city’s recognisable landmarks – which might as well be virtual postcards – although busy streets such as Byres Road in Glasgow or the Royal Mile in Edinburgh prove fun for virtual people-watching (is that an argument we spot outside Rawalpindi’s Indian restaurant on Sauchiehall Street?)

The voyeuristic element proves one of the most entertaining uses of Street View. I search all my haunts to try to spot my virtual self, and friends’ houses, finding that I can just about see into the window of one acquaintance’s living room.

This aspect does, of course, raise the very real concern about breach of privacy. Last year, Google was investigated by the Information Commissioner’s Office over the plans, but was eventually given the go-ahead for the project. Street View uses special technology to blur registration plates and faces (resulting in some cases in the blurring of the faces of statues or horses) and users can flag up images for removal by clicking on a ‘Report a concern’ link.

Google argues that the level of detail shown is the same as that you would see driving down a road (hence the reason 10 Downing Street is not visible).

While critics argue that the service could be used to plan crimes, Google UK’s new head, Matt Brittin, said that in discussions with the Metropolitan police, they found that the service helps to track and monitor crime. Indeed, on one occasion police in the US used Street View to find the location of a kidnapped child.

However, some campaigners claim that it violates our right to privacy. “These images are being captured without people’s permission for commercial use and we believe that it is not legally acceptable,” Simon Davies of Privacy International told a reporter yesterday. “They are also putting into place a system for updating these images in the future, and for storing the images digitally where they could be misused.”

So could a man put his home address into Street View only to spot his wife greeting the milkman in a rather-too-friendly manner? Could a boss search for their place of work and catch their employees at the back door having a sneaky cigarette? Certainly, Street View has inadvertantly caught people red-handed (albeit retrospectively) on more than one occasion.

The tens of millions of pictures were obtained last summer, when a fleet of Google cars nipped across the nation capturing images – which were later stitched together – on special 360-degree cameras that were mounted on their roofs. Difficult weather conditions held up the process in many cases: dry, overcast days proved most effective for getting clear pictures, but last summer those were few and far between.

So for what will we use Street View? Google suggests you might employ it to preview your holiday accommodation, show friends abroad where you live, check out local amenities if you’re moving to a new area, or check out the level of wheelchair access a building or area has before you visit.

“Street View has been hugely popular with our users in Europe and worldwide; we’re thrilled it’s now available in the UK for so many great cities,” says Google’s geospatial technologist, Ed Parsons. “Google Maps and Google Earth have long been popular with British people and are used by governments, businesses and individuals as essential and informative tools every day of the week – (this] now adds a new dimension.”

Street View has also teamed up with other organisations, including FindaProperty.com, which allows users to look at the local area before they view a property to rent or buy (a service that would certainly have saved me some time last year, when I wrote off a potential flat upon finding it was located opposite a suspicious-looking sauna) and Tate, who will offer art lovers links to locations that have inspired paintings in their galleries.

All practical uses certainly, but Street View is also – quite simply – an addictive resource. Once you get the hang of it, you can zip around a city, exploring less familiar areas from the comfort of your desk and getting excited when you spot all your favourite places. (Some are more interesting than others of course – there’s something rather sinister about sitting indoors on a sunny day, taking a virtual tour of the A199 in East Lothian.)

In countries where the service has been established for a while, spotting weird and wacky things on Street View has evolved into something of a sport.

From nudity to thieves escaping through windows and even a man dressed as a beehive, entire websites are now devoted to bizarre Street View sightings.

So with the service now up and running in Scotland, what strange Street View spots might we clock up? A Morningside Lady shoplifting a cream scone, perhaps? Naked sunbathing in Kelvingrove Park? Fred Goodwin nipping out to collect his pension? Log on to maps.google.co.uk to find out.

MILES BETTER

• ORGANISERS said that London was the most difficult place to drive for Street View because of its many one-way streets and high buildings, and a lack of parking areas.

• SOME areas are yet to be visible on Street View, owing to road works taking place when Google was in town. Edinburgh’s Princes Street and George Street, for example, aren’t yet available to view.

• THE Google team covered 22,369 miles across 25 cities in the UK to launch the service in Britain.

• ONE imaginative Google employee used Street View to propose to his girlfriend.

• STREET View provides 360° horizontal and 290° vertical panoramic street-level views.

• FOR pedestrian areas and narrow streets that cannot be accessed by car, Google Bikes are used instead.

• THE ultimate aim, Google claims, is to eventually provide street views of the whole world.

• IN order to protect their privacy, before the service was launched, Google removed photos of domestic-violence shelters.

• THE Pentagon, right, has banned Google from publishing Street View content of US military bases.

• A US couple sued Google unsuccessfully for invasion of privacy, stating that because their home was visible on Street View, its value was diminished because it had been chosen for its privacy.

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Coming to an ID Card Near You: Your DNA

Friday, March 20th, 2009

One of the many disgraceful aspects about the disgraceful ID card programme is the reluctance of the UK government to make key documents available.

For such a momentous change in the relationship of government to governed, it is critically important that a full debate about all the issues be conducted; but without key details of the scheme, that is made more difficult – which is presumably why the UK government has resisted the publication of the so-called “Gateway reviews” so long.

Finally, though, we have gained the right to see these somewhat outdated documents. Despite their age, and the unnecessary redactions, some useful new information has come to light, which more than justifies the long battle to gain access.

There are two astonishing sections in the reviews, both from the second document, written in January 2004. The first is as follows:

The Identity Cards programme’s potential for success is not in doubt. As the SRO and Programme Director recognise, however, there is much work to be done before a robust business case can be established for a solution that meets the business need, is affordable and achievable, with appropriate options explored, and likely to achieve value for money, as required at Gate 1.

We list below some key areas where in our view the planned activities are critical, with recommendations where appropriate.

“The Identity Cards programme’s potential for success is not in doubt”: that is an extraordinary statement against the background of countless analyses, reports and comments by experts in the field pointing out all the flaws inherent in the proposed ID card scheme. The fact that the existence of those is not even *mentioned* is testimony to the complete indifference to those views. The government and its advisors have clearly made their minds up, and anyone else’s opinions are just irrelevant.

But, for me, the single most shocking revelation is the following:

There is general agreement that there should be a second biometric as well as the photograph (or digital photograph). On the assumption that DNA would be too expensive, however, should it be fingerprints or irises (or both)?

What this clearly states is that it was only considerations of *cost* that prevented the use of our DNA as a “second biometric”, not any concerns about the huge social and moral implications of such a move. Here’s what I wrote on the subject five years ago:

Last September, the police called for the UK national database of DNA samples to be extended to include everyone. Given the determination of the UK government to introduce identity cards, despite widespread opposition and the well-known flaws in the whole approach, it can only be a matter of time before it links the two compulsory schemes together. The advantages - for the authorities - would be enormous.

Including a silicon chip storing your entire genome would add little to the overall cost once sequencing becomes cheap, but would ensure that an identity card would be tamper-proof and impossible to forge, since its identification number - the sequence of As, Cs, Gs and Ts that make up your genome - would be unique to you (apart from any twin) and always checkable against your DNA.

Moreover, there would be no need for the proposed draconian legislation to make carrying such cards obligatory: it would be a physical impossibility to do otherwise, since your digital code/identification number is present in practically every cell of your body.

This includes those you shed as skin and hair, whatever you touch and wherever you go - the perfect trail for government surveillance based on a Google-like capacity to index and cross-reference the DNA present in a given location at a given time.

As I mentioned back then, it is only a matter of time before reading our genome becomes as cheap as taking a blood test: as the US National Human Genome Research Institute put it recently: “sequencing costs have decreased faster than Moore’s Law”.

This means that the objection voiced in the 2004 ID card review about cost will fall away: it will be quite feasible economically for every person’s DNA to be sequenced and included as another biometric check.

Given the plans to monitor all emails and Web views, together with the fact that there are already four million people on the UK DNA database - nearly a million of whom have never been convicted of a crime - can there be any doubt that the UK government will, at some point, try to add DNA to the other biometrics on the card? Purely for our own good, you understand….

Glyn Moody

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Government ignored serious ‘concerns’ over ID card feasibility and benefits

Friday, March 20th, 2009

By Leo King |

The government was warned about the technical feasibility and merits of its highly controversial £4.7 billion ID cards scheme, according to the just published findings of two Gateway reviews.

The reviews, conducted in 2003 and 2004 at the start of the scheme, had been kept under wraps but were finally released after the Information Tribunal last month ordered the government to release them.

The tribunal said the public deserved to know the results of the reviews because there “remains a perception that central government does not have a particularly good track record with regard to IT projects.”

It emerged that the authors of the reviews expressed “concern” the authorities that were supposed to benefit from the scheme were not in reality particularly enthusiastic about it.

The second report said early recommendations on project management and risk assessment were addressed by the government, but “many complex issues” remained, affecting feasibility and affordability.

“The main potential beneficiaries of an identity cards scheme, such as police, DVLA, Passport Agency, IND (Immigration and Nationality Directorate) DWP (Department for Work and Pensions), Inland Revenue, and the financial sector, though generally supportive, were not quite as enthusiastic about the programme as might have been hoped,” the authors of the report wrote.

The police originally questioned the point of ID cards when there was no legal requirement for citizens to produce them on demand, it emerged.

The reviews also warned the government that there could be “unexpected data problems”, because of the “sheer scale” of the scheme. There was “no evidence that the skills and capabilities for the programme are readily available, nor have arrangements been made so far to secure them,” the reviews warned.

Experts had also warned that biometric data would not necessarily be a reliable way of checking identity.

And the money spent on the scheme was not justified considering the “erosion of public support” for ID cards, the authors wrote.

The Conservative party today seized on the opportunity to criticise the scheme. Chris Grayling, shadow home secretary, said “now we know why” the government had fought to keep the reports private.

But the Identity and Passport Service said the reviews were five years old, highlighting that the second review showed many of the recommendations on project management and risk assessment had been addressed early on.

“They acknowledge the good work that was done to ensure successful development of the ID cards scheme – good work which continues to this day,” an IPS spokesperson told the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

Gateway reviews published since 2004 have not been released.

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