OVER THE EDGE

December 5, 2007-January 9, 2008

25 Million Lost Identities Charges English
Privacy Debate

JEREMY JOHNSON

STAFF WRITER

Consider the following scenario: A gov-
ering political party has been in office for
several terms. After several terms, serious
controversy arises over that governing party.
The party leader steps down and a new leader
takes his place only to have some serious in-
cident occurring. When that happened, the
opposition party takes full advantage of the
situation and has a field day scoring political
points. By now, a vast majority of Canadians
may be thinking, “This sounds like the Lib-
eral Party right around the time Paul Martin
took over” This isn’t a modern history les-
son, however, it has been occurring towards
the end of November — in England. There are
many similarities between the sponsorship
scandal and the debacle occurring in Britain,
but there are also many differences — one dif-
ference is setting off a firestorm of a debate
in Britain and has privacy, law, political and
technology experts around the world talking.

Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, or
HMRC, can be described as an equivalent to
Canada’s CRA (Canada Revenue Agency).
It is essentially an agency responsible for
Britain’s taxes. On November 20, the Prime
Minister of Britain, Gordon Brown, had to in-
form Members of Parliament that 25 million
personal records (the population of Britain is
60 million) had gone missing. This event is
described as the biggest data breach in British
history.

To learn more about how this affects the
political climate in Britain, Over The Edge
consulted with Political Science professor
Gary Wilson, who teaches European and Brit-
ish politics, and follows the British political
scene quite closely. He explained that over
the summer, Tony Blair stepped down as the
Prime Minister and Labour party leader, and
was replaced by a new leader, Gordon Brown,
who had spent the last decade as Chancel-
lor of the Exchequer, Britain’s equivalent of

Miriam MateJsova
CONTRIBUTOR

the Minister of Finance. Since taking office
Brown, who has been described by many as
dour and cold, has been working hard to ap-
pear caring and charismatic. Shortly after the
new Prime Minister took up the new position,
severe flooding occurred in Britain during the
same summer. These floods were described
as the worst floods to hit Britain in a genera-
tion. The governing party took quick action
to offer relief to flood victims. Consequently,

“While the CCTV cameras all over British roads and public places

News

curity standards a third time, only this time,
the package arrives safely. On November 8,
a senior manager is then informed of the lost
package. On November 10, Alistair Darling,
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, informed
the Prime Minister of the lost package. Mean-
while, the chancellor ordered an immediate
investigation. On November 14, Darling in-
structed the Revenue and Customs chairman
Paul Gray to get the police involved, launch-

3

in the context of the privacy debates in Brit-
ain. While the CCTV cameras all over British
roads and public places have caused wide-
spread debate on privacy in Britain, the debut
of possible legislation that would standardize
identities onto a single card — dubbed Na-
tional ID’s — heated the debates. The National
ID cards would see the creation of a massive
database of peoples identities. Among other
things, irises would be scanned, a photograph
of the person would be taken as well as a
fingerprint would be used to associate an in-

have caused wide-spread debate on privacy in Britain, the debut of dividual so actually having the card wouldn’t

possible legislation that would standardize identities onto a single card

— dubbed National ID’s — heated the debates.”

the Labor Party’s polls showed that they were
gaining over the opposition. It was then that
Brown thought of calling an election while
his party was favored in Britain according to
polls. After mulling over the situation, Brown
decided that calling an election would bring
unwanted negative publicity, so he held off.
Now with an image still in the beginning
phases and a PR being rebuilt, that was when
25 million personal records simply vanished.
Naturally, the Conservative party - the oppos-
ition party - are having a “field day” with the
incident.

It turns out that in March, a junior official at
HMRC broke standard security procedure by
giving the National Audit Office (NAO) in-
formation on people under child benefits. The
information was then later returned safely. In
September, 15,000 records were lost by the
HMRC. In the same month, a laptop contain-
ing 400 personal identities was also stolen.
On October 18, a junior official, again, sends
NAO the information of people on child
benefits. This was sent via courier on two
password protected, but unencrypted CDs.
That package has yet to be found as it never
arrived at the intended location. Later that
month, a second copy was sent, breaching se-

Staff and regular customers of the Fifth Avenue Bow-

ing a more intensified investigation between
NAO and HMRC. Shortly afterwards, Gray
tells Darling it might be a good idea to resign.
On November 20, with Darling resigning, the

‘Prime Minister was left to inform everyone

that nearly half Britain’s identities, namely
the people who benefit from child benefits,
had been compromised.

The police say that they have every reason
to believe that the identities have not fallen
into the wrong hands at this point, but a help-
line was set up for those concerned and for
those who experience unexplained trans-
actions. The Conservative party argues that
there are serious flaws in the way security
was handled. Meanwhile, the Labor Party
says that procedures were broken and inves-
tigations are underway. Wilson notes that this
is not really the fault of the government when
a juniar official made the mistake.

Wilson also noted that technology, while
often making our lives incredibly easier,
makes this kind of problem possible. “In the
past, this amount of information would have
to be stored in rooms of filing cabinets,” Wil-
son told Over The Edge, “now, you can simply
store it all onto two small compact discs.”

Things are more interesting when viewed

classes” even more successTru

be necessary. Opposition to this idea gradual-
ly grew since its conception in 1995. To this
day, there are a number of opposition groups.
One of the most prominent one is “NO2ID”
with the slogan “Stop ID cards and the data-
base state.” The basic idea of National IDs
was to unify identification systems. Passports
are one example of what the ID can replace.
Proponents might say that this system would
save money in the end, protect citizens from
acts of terrorism and increase overall national
security among other things. Opposition ef-
forts question the effectiveness of such a
database as well as raise the issues of personal
privacy that is being brought into this.

Now with the loss of nearly half the popu-
lation of Britain’s identities, opposition to
National ID cards are asking, ‘if the govern-
ment cannot be trusted with personal identi-
ties with taxes, how can they be trusted with
an increased amount of personal information
through National ID cards?’

With the debates raging on issues of privacy
vs. national security among other things cur-
rently inflamed by the latest events, either
way it is bad news for the governing party.
With support sagging in the polls, missing
information and a public relations nightmare
on their hands, it is very likely that the mess
two simple CDs caused will take a long time
to clear up.

is year!

adrome saw almost forty people filling the basement and
loudly enjoying five-pin bowling on Friday night of Nov- ©
ember 16. The International Studies Student Association’s #
ISSA) second annual bowling competition, or the “Battle of
IINTS classes,” had even bigger success than last year. Thi
ime the winning team (Caroline’s Stryk Force) received an
ordinary trophy (an old bowling shoe painted gold), which |
eir leader will keep until the next year’s competition. An- |
other new addition is a charitable aspect of this event; the |
ISSA wants to contribute to the community by giving a por.
ion of the revenue from ticket sales to the local Society of St
incent de Paul. :
Altogether, there were seven bowling teams - five of them
ere led by international studies professors and a TA. One
as the “ISSA” team consisting of the board members, and
one was a casual team of unbiased bowlers from UNBC. The
evening was full of fun with a slight competitiveness in the s
air. People enjoyed bowling, music, food, cheap beer from ©
pstairs, prizes for the best and worst bowler and a tradition
al ice-cream cake that the best team decided to share with
everyone. The mood in the basement was so great that at one |
point an elderly man from upstairs came to see what all that |
heering was about. '
As it usually happens in any competition, there were some |
protests coming from other teams after the winner was an:
nounced. Hopefully, these will be forgotten by next year’s
‘battle’ when a new team might seize the trophy. Until then,

The winning team, captained by Caroline Clarke, gather round their hard won trophey.
-PHoro Courresy or Miriam Maresovs