Still time to submit evidence to the Home Affairs Committee inquiry into "A Surveillance Society?"
There is still time to send in a formal submission to the House of Commons Select Committee on Home Affairs inquiry into “A Surveillance Society?” before the deadline tomorrow Monday 23rd April 2007.
Since they are obviously not going to go into detail, with any of the large number of topics which fall under these wide ranging terms of reference, perhaps a short 1 page letter with half a dozen or so points might be as influential with the Committee as a 2500 word submission.
Last week they took announced an Oral Evidence session with the Information Commissioner, the uncorrected transcript of which may be available online next week.{CORRECTION: this Oral Evidence session is scheduled for the 1st May]
Terms of reference of the inquiry:
The inquiry will consider the growth of numerous public and private databases and forms of surveillance with a direct relevance to the work of the Home Office. They either derive directly from the work of the Home Office and its related public functions or are controversial because whilst they offer the potential to play a part in the fight against crime their use may impinge on individual liberty.The inquiry will be wide-ranging, considering the following issues:
• Access by public agencies to private databases
• Data-sharing between government departments and agencies
• Existing safeguards for data use and whether they are strong enough
• The monitoring of abuses
• Potential abuse of private databases by criminals
• The case for introducing privacy impact assessments
• Privacy-enhancing technologies
• Profiling.
The inquiry will focus on Home Office responsibilities such as identity cards, the National DNA Database and CCTV, but where relevant will look also at other departments’ responsibilities in this area, for instance the implications of databases being developed by the Department of Health and the DfES for use in the fight against crime.
The Committee’s aim is not to carry out a comprehensive detailed review of the subject of the kind recently carried out by the Surveillance Studies Network on behalf of the Information Commissioner (and published in his report on The Surveillance Society in October 2006); but to build on the Information Commission’s work in exploring the large strategic issues of concern to the general public, with a view to proposing ground rules for Government and its agencies.
Comments
did you see the piece on mi5 in sunday's observer diary?
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/7days/story/0,,2062815,00.html
Posted by: spycatcher | April 23, 2007 11:26 AM