back to article EU privacy watchdog laments weakened privacy proposals

The European Union's Council of Ministers has weakened proposals to overhaul EU privacy laws and left people with fewer protections for their personal information, the privacy watchdog for EU institutions has warned. The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) has said that the Council's revisions to European Parliament and …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It will only get worse

    Technology marches on, and the ability of governments to invade their citizens privacy marches on with it.

    Everyone is well meaning, but they can only see their small part of the pictures and it doesn't look so intrusive, well it is ONLY one CCTV camera, well it is only the email headers, well it is only the location of cell phones to the nearest 50m, well it is only ...... Everyone is well meaning, yet the inevitable end result is the Stasi.

    http://www.jobserve.com/W08DC7B86B46471E1.jsjob

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    @AC

    I'm not at all sure it IS well meaning. I think in writing 1984 Orwell recognised something particularly nasty lurking in the British national soul. Our past rejections of any form of ID card has also acknowledged that latent jackboot polishing totalitarian streak that exists in all of us - something other Europeans fail to grasp when they question the fuss we are making over what should merely be a convenient means of identifying yourself. Perhaps it is our recent history of unfettered consumerism, that "go on, treat yourself" mentality that leads government to treat itself to all those naughty little excesses, the little toys it knows are ultimately bad for us all - temptations that would have been resisted in a more disciplined age with a fresher memory of where fascism leads.

    Paris, cos she knows where naughty self indulgence gets you in the end.

  3. Fluffykins Silver badge

    Well

    I'd rather evidence that I wasn't involved from a recording CCTV camera rather than the Altzheimers-addled memory of Mrs Noseykins peeping out with her rheumy eyes through her net curtains.

    I'd also rather like the ability to prove conclusively that I am, indeed, who I say I am so why do the liberty idiots insist that DNA (which is, after all, is the essence of my identity as an individual) should never be kept in a national database. Why are they trying to take that right to an identity away from me?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    @ Fluffykins

    You have obviously never tried getting data errors sorted on a national database - just imagine if they messed up and your DNA profile ended up attached to someone else's records - just how are you going to prove you are you then!

    and when you see the quality of the quality of average system brought by the government in the UK - you know data quality will be poor, even if it isn't being populated by bored Civil Servants being paid slightly better than the average supermarket worker

    And we haven't even got into issues about false matches when the police search etc.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @ Fluffykins

    If you're such a big DNA db fan, try googling "low copy number" and see if it still gives you a boner/moist patch.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Fluffykins, your dream is within reach

    You will be delighted to know that anyone can volunteer their DNA onto the national database. Just got to the nearest police station and ask to be swabbed.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Fluffykins

    "I'd rather evidence that I wasn't involved from a recording CCTV camera rather than the Altzheimers-addled memory of Mrs Noseykins peeping out with her rheumy eyes through her net curtains."

    Up to you, you can carry a camera recording everywhere you go and add you DNA and finderprints to the national DB if you want, even publish your name here would help so we know your real name associated with that comment instead of hiding behind 'fluffykins'.....

    After all, what if something happens while your making that comment? You could use the fact you were busy writing it to locate yourself at your computer at the time in question.

    You're free to enter Big Brother too and get a wider audience than the CCTV operator and their Christmas CCTV blooper tapes.

    Rozzers look for evidence of guilt not evidence of innocence, and once they have their evidence they stop looking. So don't be so sure you're innocent Fluffykins, because it's not whether your innocent, it's whether a case of guilt can be made against you. Which is why, even with the protections, we get miscarriages of justice.

  8. ElFatbob

    @Fluffykins

    Probably the 'liberty idiots' have got a well grounded view on how this government consistently mismanages and abuses personal information they compel the citizenry to give.

    The governments' own reports CONFIRM that CCTV does not reduce crime or the fear of crime. It has limited use in prosecutions, particularly with older CCTV systems. 'Personal CCTV' evidence is usually 'straight to bin' as far as courts are concerned.

    The 'Police, Camera Action' type programmes (which i suspect you watch) contain just about all the useful stuff they deliver out of how many hundreds of thousands of cameras? For such a vast network, it's not much is it?

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7384843.stm

    Ironically, you wouldn't be so concerned about 'Mrs NoseyKins' if this government hadn't effectively dismantled your basic position before the law from 'innocent until proven guilty' to 'guilty and now prove you're innocent'.

    I don't think anybody wants to deprive you of your 'right' to have your identity stolen, sorry confirmed on a huge central database. As AC @ 14.04 has pointed out, you can volunteer your DNA. Great, go ahead.

    BUT, in the interest of being equitable, please respect those of us who want to exercise our right NOT to go on a national DNA database. I would not have problem with this db if the defined scope was ahered to (convicted criminals) or if it was entirely voluntary.

    And that leads me to another point about 'scope creep'. Just about every one of these systems has drifted far away from the original stated purpose. Some examples:

    DNA database: from convicted sex offenders only to anybody arrested

    APNR system: from catching VED evaders to being implented along the entire network of motorway cameras and now local authority CCTV - without any accountability

    Congestion Charge Cameras: from CCC compliance and revenue enforcement to 24/7 number plate monitoring with unrestricted access for police and security services.

    With that kind of creep, it's not outwith the possibilities of imagination to expect the Ministry Of Health to sell the information on the DNA db to private companies, while the Ministry of Truth tells us it's for our benefit.

    Oh wait, they've already started doing that.

    So Fluffykins, go ahead and exercise you 'right', but leave the rest of us the f**k out of this totalinarianism.

    Yours,

    A 'liberty idiot' and proud of it.

  9. Graham Marsden
    Thumb Down

    Ministers want "fewer protections"

    In other news, Pope found to be Catholic...

    Of course Ministers don't want anything that's going to interfere with their All-Seeing, All Knowing, All Controlling, Big Brother Database State!

    And, Fluffykins, I'd rather there be evidence that someone *was* involved in something, it's called Presumed Innocent Unless Proven Guilty, have you heard of it?

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    @fluffykins

    Should you ever suffer from Alzheimer's - identity won't be a problem.

    Find the remark deeply offensive from someone who evidently hasn't a clue about the disease.

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