The United Kingdom is not coming to rest these days. One thought it could not get any worse after the agreement earlier this week between the British Government, six Internet provider and the British Music Industry which more or less forced the providers to send warning letters to their customers if they were suspected of sharing files illegally on the Internet.
On Friday another blunder came to light, not related to filesharing but to privacy and ethics which somehow connects it to warning letters case.
The British Government has apparently passed millions of DNA profiles to private companies without the consent of the involved. Since 1999 the Government has accepted 25 requests for access to the database which contains 4.2 million DNA profiles of British citizens.
Officials quickly let everyone know that the data was stripped of information that could connect it to the person behind.
Paul Debenham, the director of innovation and development at LGC, said: “It is like being given a list of number plates but having no idea about the make of the car.”
A fairly interesting quote. I’m not familiar with the British Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (Welsh: Asiantaeth Trwyddedu Gyrwyr a Cherbydau) but they probably keep records of drivers and their license plates in their database.
A spokesman for the National Policing Improvement Agency, which oversees the database, said: “These are completely anonymous profiles which are not identifiable in any way. After approval, they were made available for authorised research purposes demonstrating, clear, potential operational benefit to the police in terms of detecting and solving crime.”
Where have we heard this before?
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Hmm I consider myself lucky then since I live in the UK and haven’t been affected by either of those incidents. the DNA profiles are anonymous and even if they weren’t what use are they going to have since it’s all from criminals.
Apparently DNA profiles do not get deleted even if the persons were found to be innocent.
Anonymity is a condition of democracy. These types of information will make it ever easier to turn England into a dictatorship. Soon you will not be able to do anything without the authorities knowing about it and when they wish – they will use that power.
Perhaps it will become illegal to say certain things, to demonstrate, to publish certain information – what do we know where things will end up?
The most prudent thing is to protect our privacy as best we can. The government is not your friend or your parents. It has interests and a dynamic of its own which are not always harmless to the citizens.
@martin You can get it deleted if you were found innocent, there was some law suit of something about it earlier this year or last year about it.