UPDATE: More UK councils using the anti-terrorism law for clearly non-terrorism purposes.

Disclosure: I worked with PogoWasRight.org on an anti-REAL ID campaign.

PogoWasRight.org highlights a UK Daily Mail report, “Big Brother council caught spying on residents 17 times.” The Poole Borough Council carried out the surveillance on “fishermen, vandals and a family suspected of living in the wrong school catchment area.” The surveillance was conducted “to detect neighbourhood nuisance and anti-social behaviour, substantiate benefit claims and monitor suspected drug dealers,” among other things. What exactly does the Council consider to be “anti-social behaviour”? The Council claims it has the power to undertake this surveillance through the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, an anti-terrorism law. Read more »

Thomas Hammarberg, Commissioner for Human Rights for the Council of Europe, has published a new essay, Strong data protection rules are needed to prevent the emergence of a surveillance society.

Surveillance technology is developing with breath-taking speed. This creates new instruments in the struggle against terrorism and organised crime, but also raises fundamental questions on the right to privacy for everyone. Individuals should be protected from intrusions into their private life and from the improper collecting, storing, sharing and use of data about them. Terrorism and organised crime must be combated – but not with means which undermine basic human rights. Read more »

President Bush has signed the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (“GINA”). Bush called GINA “a piece of legislation which prohibits health insurers and employers from discriminating on the basis of genetic information. In other words, it protects our citizens from having genetic information misused.” GINA prohibits health insurance providers and employers from requiring genetic testing. Genetic data cannot be used to determine insurance premiums, eligibility for insurance, or employment based on genetic data. Read more »

Schneier on Security highlights a Times UK story, “Shops track customers via mobile phone.”

The surveillance mechanism works by monitoring the signals produced by mobile handsets and then locating the phone by triangulation measuring the phone’s distance from three receivers.

It has already been installed in two shopping centres, including Gunwharf Quays in Portsmouth, and three more centres will begin using it next month, Times Online has learnt. Read more »

The federal government has slightly improved its overall computer security grade from C-minus to C, according to the FY 2007 Computer Security Report Card (pdf) released by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. However, more than a third of the 24 agencies evaluated received a D or F: Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Interior, Labor, Transportation, Treasury, Veterans Affairs and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Read more »

This week, the NPR show “Justice Talking” is rerunning a program that first aired in February. You can listen to me debate the privacy, security and civil liberty costs and benefits of camera surveillance systems. Also on the program is Everett Gillison, the deputy mayor for public safety in Philadelphia. Mr. Gillison is a former prosecutor and has nuanced reasons for his support of camera surveillance systems and belief that they do improve security.