Social media has been one of the hottest issues in the UK riots this week.  In a blog post on Tuesday, I discussed the knee-jerk reaction to the role social media has played in the communication between rioters and looters on the streets of cities across the UK.  Our initial fears raised when we heard the first calls to limit social media turned out to be more realistic than we originally thought as people looked to stop the violence and thuggery.  Now concrete statements by government officials have indicated that they believe such a suggestion was within their remit.  This is an unacceptable step, depriving citizens of their rights to freedom of speech and a slippery slope to more invasive, authoritarian-style governance.

And yet, the response from Government seems to want just that.  Home Secretary Theresa May, said she would meet with representatives of social media groups like Twitter and Blackberry to discuss the realities of such a plan.  And at yesterday’s emergency recall of Parliament, the Prime Minister said:

“Mr Speaker, everyone watching these horrific actions will be stuck by how they were organised via social media.  Free flow of information can be used for good. But it can also be used for ill.  And when people are using social media for violence we need to stop them.

So we are working with the Police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality.”

This is simply shocking.  In China and the Middle East, social media has been a forum calling for respect of civil liberties, democracy and rights for individuals in nations stripped of their freedoms.  Britain has been under the assumption that it possesses basic fundamental values of privacy and rights to free speech for some time now.  Statements indicating a move towards limiting those values is shocking, and characteristically un-British.

The response on Twitter and Facebook since the outbreak of the riots has been, for the most part, anything but encouraging of the violence.  And users are, with few exceptions, law-abiding and denounce the looters as thugs and criminals.  Curtailing the rights of all to stop the actions of a few is not a justification.  Information posted on public-access social networking sites are open to the police to comb for information with very few limitations.  These are resources the police could use if they allow them to stay open.

The government knows that the move to shut these down would be met with great resistance.  Twitter users responded sharply to the Prime Minister’s words yesterday, and the Government would do well to take note of this.  Public opinion at the moment is asking for restored order, and it is the responsibility of government is to provide that.  However, to do so by seizing the basic rights and liberties of of its citizens is wrong.

By Nick Pickles

Today, David Cameron had this to say to Parliament on the role of technology in the recent riots:

“Mr Speaker, everyone watching these horrific actions will be stuck by how they were organised via social media. Free flow of information can be used for good. But it can also be used for ill. And when people are using social media for violence we need to stop them.

“So we are working with the Police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality. I have also asked the police if they need any other new powers.”

It is a sad indictment of how poorly technology is understood in Government that this even made it into the statement. Aside from the fact that Blackberry Messenger is not a social network, the Whitehall response of blaming social media and BBM for the riots is only made worse by their proposed solution – let us see everything, or shut it down.

It’s a further sign of how inadequate the police’s intelligence gathering remains when so much of the discussion between those involved in the disorder took place in public forums.

To shut down social networking would require both shutting down the internet and mobile phone comms. Whether that is even possible, and ignoring the enormous economic impact it would have, the fact it is being considered should send a chill wind through the whole country.

Civil unrest – and indeed wars between nations – began, and were organised, long before modern technology. Technology facilitates faster action, but the underlying issues remain the same.

William Hague’s interview with Andrew Marr during the uprisings in Egypt offer an alternative viewpoint, which was clearly illustrated in a subsequent statement.

“The abuse of internet and mobile networks and, in particular, today’s increased intimidation and harassment of journalists, are unacceptable and disturbing.”

Quite.

According to a report on This is Leicestershire, a new study carried out by the data protection firm Network 2 has found that more than threee quarters of businesses in the region are failing to follow correct procedures for destroying data.

In more then half of the cases, businesses reported that half of companies had experienced cases where people had gained unauthorised access to personal or confidential information which should otherwise have been deleted or destroyed.

The picture is no better in other regions, with the study also finding three quarters of businesses in the North East ignorant of their legal duties.  Just 22% of businesses in the region said they were aware of new rules demanding that data on equipment such as computer hard disks is properly disposed of.

Given that the failure to dispose of sensitive data can land businesses with a fine of up to £500,000, it is concerning to note that so many firms give this issue such little thought.  This lack of fear is due, in no small part, to the feeble nature of the Information Commissioner’s Office and his unwillingness to prosecute even the most serious of cases involving data theft and loss.

When it comes to the disposal of personal data, firms should be sure to adopt the most sringent procedures possible; be it using software designed to ensure that deleted data cannot be recovered at a later date or, when it comes to information on paper, employing the services of a recycling firm specialising in confidential waste.

Ignorance is not – and cannot be – any form of defence.

London on fire

As I write, riots are raging in many parts of the capital.

In amongst the principled arguments against excessive surveillance, we at Big Brother Watch have always mounted two additional, practical points: that all this surveillance often doesn’t work, and it absorbs capital that might have been spent in other, more productive ways.

Both authoritarian opponents and purists on our own side have sometimes criticised us for this. But surely it’s obvious that:

1) Not one aspect of our ubiquitous surveillance network, erected to watch all of us all the time, just in case, has done anything to protect Londoners in this, our hour of greatest need; and

2) In an environment in which only a finite pot of capital exists to spend on any given portfolio, that tremendously expensive network soaked up vast amounts of capital – at least some of which might have been spent on training more police officers to deal with these situations?

By Alex Deane

One of the most privileged powers the Police force in the United Kingdom have is the ability, with the agreement of a magistrate, to enter the business premises and private homes of those they suspect of being involved in criminal activities.

When these powers are used, the public expect the officers who are granted permission to enter private residences to hold to the highest of professional standards.

They do not expect Police officers to abuse their access or engage in acts of frivolity while in those private spaces.

Sadly, five Police Matrix officers in Merseyside have been sacked by a disciplinary panel after using an iPhone to take pictures of themselves in various amusing poses while they are supposed to be searching a private home.

While Merseyside Police should be congratulated for taking such stern action, this case raises serious questions about how often this type of behaviour takes place – and goes undetected.  This case should serve as an example to all Police officers that such rank unprofessionalism and carelessness will not be tolerated.

Hat-tip: Neville

Over the past few years, the Russian Federation has ceased to even mildly resemble a functioning democracy.  Bit by bit, the dictatorial cabal surrounding Prime Minister – and de facto dictator – Vladimir Putin has centralised power, conducted extra-judicial killings, launched aggressive military and economic attacks on its weaker neighbours and and turned the democratic process into little more than a sham.

It is therefore no surprise to read the news this morning in EurActive that the Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev  is considering introducing controls on the internet in order to “prevent a slide in traditional cultural values among young people”.

According to the piece, the former KGB officer Nurgaliyev had the following to say:

“It is necessary to work out a set of measures for limiting the activities of certain Internet resources without encroaching on the free exchange of information.

“Russia’s youth need looking after to prevent young people from being corrupted by “lopsided” ideas, especially in music, that may undermine traditional values.

“It seems to me that the time has long been ripe to carry out monitoring in the country to find out what they are listening to, what they are reading, what they are watching.

“They have forgotten the love songs of old, the waltzes, everything that united us, our background and our roots”.

In light of the slide towards authoritarianism in Russia in recent years, I read Nurgaliyev’s comments not as the observations of a man concerned with protecting culture, but rather a someone obsessed with controlling what information may or may not reach ordinary people.

For now, Russia remains a part of the pointless talking shop that is the Council of Europe – a body supposedly designed to safeguard human rights in Europe.  Anything other than the strongest condemnation from the organisation would truly resign it to irrelevance.

You can read the full piece here.

Regardless of one’s views on smoking, the overwhelming majority of Big Brother Watch supporters would agree it should be left up to the owner of an individual business as to how to communicate to their customers that smoking is forbidden on their premesis.

An astonishing report in The Publican this morning suggests that the owners of a pub in North Wales have been fined £300 for failing to  display the correct, state-sanctioned anti-smoking signs.

While awaiting the delivery of a set of “no smoking” signs, the bar in question displayed a series of hand-written posters.  These posters fell foul of a law declaring that that such signs must be at least 6.3 inches long and depict the standard “no smoking” symbol.

The £300 fine handed down by magistrates was comprised of a £150 fine for failing to display a “graphic representation of a burning cigarette enclosed in a red circle with a red bar which crossed the cigarette symbol“, £120 in court costs and a victims’ surcharge of £15.

Given that smoking in all enclosed public spaces in the United Kingdom is against the law, it seems rather odd that such a sign would be neccessary in the first place.  Regardless, this is petty bureaucracy of the very worst kind.

Have council officers and courts really got nothing better to do with their time than hand out petty and vindictive penalties such as this?