Loss of Privacy

EPIC: “Body Scanners and Privacy” from Kat Rodriguez on Vimeo.

Featuring:
James Bamford. Author, “The Shadow Factory”.

Monday January 25, 2010.
National Press Club

Organized by: The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). EPIC is a public policy research center in Washington, DC, focusing public attention on emerging privacy and civil liberties issues.

When the full body scanners go on trial next week at Heathrow airport, passengers will not have the choice given in America to have a pat down as they will be required to use the scanners or not fly at all. The UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission strongly advises against this as they consider it an invasion of privacy.

The airport’s owner, BAA, is preparing to install a scanner in each of its five ­terminals. The trials will use two different technologies that see through passengers’ clothing. One trial will involve “backscatter” technology, which exposes travellers to low-level x-rays. This is already in use at Manchester airport.

The second type of machine uses a “millimetre wave” system, which bounces radio waves off the human body to form a 3D image of the passenger. Both types of technology have raised privacy concerns owing to the graphic nature of the passenger images, with civil liberties campaigners calling the process “virtual strip-searching”.

The Department for Transport has drawn up a preliminary code of conduct for using the machines, and it will follow some guidelines used in the US. These state that the security officer guiding the passenger through the machine never sees the image, and that the employee viewing the scan must be based away from the passenger, in a secure room. The two officers communicate with wireless headsets; and, once viewed, the scan cannot be saved, printed or transmitted.

Virtual strip searches are never a good idea, especially when we now know that these images can be saved. The full body scanners will almost certainly break child porn laws in the United Kingdom as well.

UK police are planning on using unmanned spy drones to patrol the British skies in an effort to track more crime. The same type of drones that were used in Afghanistan will now be used to catch fly-tippers and anti-social drivers.

Documents from the South Coast Partnership, a Home Office-backed project in which Kent police and others are developing a national drone plan with BAE, have been obtained by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act.

They reveal the partnership intends to begin using the drones in time for the 2012 Olympics. They also indicate that police claims that the technology will be used for maritime surveillance fall well short of their intended use – which could span a range of police activity – and that officers have talked about selling the surveillance data to private companies. A prototype drone equipped with high-powered cameras and sensors is set to take to the skies for test flights later this year.

The drones have failed to find Osama bin Laden, but it’s good to know that they can find fly-tippers and anti-social drivers. You absolutely would never be able to find the latter two without regular police work. If these are the same type of drones that the Taliban snooped upon, it will be interesting, and entertaining, to see what happens with drones used on the British yobs.

The UK has been floating the idea of using drones to control society since, at least, 2007 in an effect to stir up fear so that, when they are mass produced, the general public will want them. Remember, whenever you spend money on gadgets instead of real people to walk the streets, crime will only get worse.

A link from Bruce Schneier’s website to another link to YouTube, I discovered this video. I don’t speak German, however, if you watch closely the scanner picked out the cell phone and Swiss Army knife, but it missed all the components needed to make a bomb.

Members of the Chaos Computer Club have been able to clone the digital security ID cards that some German airports use and then used them to access all airport areas [German] [English]. They used an RFID reader that cost less than €200 to scan a valid card. The scanner was then able to emulate the card.

Officials at the Hamburg airport admit that this is a vulnerability, but they are quick to point out that cards are not the only means of security at the airport. This, however, still does not address the problem. The system dates from 1992, which is definitely out of date, and was meant for access to low-risk places, such as schools and supermarkets, yet airport officials seem to not be taking the issue seriously.

Given that the cards allow persons to roam secure areas at the airport, they should be very concerned. The cards could allow a person to gain access to the cargo hold of an airplane. One could easily plant a bomb in that area with no one the wiser.