Bugs in the Wheely BinsAs Bruce Schneier said, you couldn’t make this one up.
Apparently some councils are bugging people’s wheely bins (actually ID’ing them with an RFID tag) to monitor quantities of non-recycled waste per household. This is sponsored by two German companies who want to know the gross statistics but the incentive for the council is that they can use the database to identify profligate households and impose sanctions.
The areas targeted so far are Crewe, Nantwich, Peterborough, South Norfolk, Woking, and Devizes. If I discover it in Bristol, don’t be surprised to see me out at the dead of night destroying the chips, if I can find them, or juggling the bins if I can’t. The implications for privacy are uncountable.
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Hello Rick
Three things to feed your paranoia!
1. On my 70th birthday in June, my old driving licence expired, requiring a new plastic card-type. The easiest way to do it was if you had a current style passport, you just quoted the number and authorised them to cross check with the Passport Agency. I sent my passport in for the cross check as it wasn’t the most recent type. So the DVLA now have my details & picture on their db and the Passport Agency knows I have a driving licence and my current address.
2. Introduction of free bus pass. Another plastic card with picture. Go into Truro library with passport & utility bill to prove identity and address. Details into computer, picture taken. Card also doubles as library card. District & County Councils now have data & picture and can cross check against poll tax db.
3. For the first time on holiday, applied for EU health card. This doesn’t require a picture but does mean that I am now on the Dept of Health db.
All of these transactions were completed rapidly and with no problems.
Hi Vulcan ;-}
and then some bright spark from the ministry suggests “why don’t we cut costs and merge all these existing databases and call it a National Identity Register.”
To get a feel for how complex that is—take a copy of the 1891 census database and the same for 1881 and merge them, matching everyone from one decade to the next. Now try for the whole country. Now try for other databases as well, say GRO Births. We still haven’t reached the size of the NIR but it will be enough. Now consider the situation if EVERY mistake will cause someone grief.
Not many votes in that.