Alan Travis writes in The Guardian:

Having probably queued to get into Britain, thousands of overseas residents, including senior business people and academics, now face the prospect of being unable to leave the country, possibly for weeks, because a key UK border agency computer system has crashed.

Hundreds of people queueing at UKBA’s public inquiry office in Croydon, applying to extend or renew biometric residence permits, were told to go home on Thursday because the computer system could not cope.

The details of more than 600,000 foreign nationals living in Britain have been logged on the biometric residents’ identity card database since it was set up four years ago.

But it has suffered repeated failures in recent weeks which culminated in a complete breakdown on Thursday. All afternoon appointments have now been cancelled for the next two weeks.

Graeme Burton writes in Computing:

Cabinet Office plans to increase data sharing among government departments and other public-sector bodies will require a new “consent exemption” to legalise the sharing of sensitive personal data.

That is the view of Kathryn Wynn, a data protection law specialist and senior associate at law firm Pinsent Masons. Even with such an exception, she warns, public-sector bodies might still have difficulty justifying sharing sensitive personal data under the Data Protection Act, without first notifying the individuals concerned.

It follows revelations that Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude is planning new laws that would provide the public sector with a “fast-track mechanism” to enable personal data collected by one government department or public-sector organisation to be used by others for purposes other than those originally intended.

According to the reports, even data collected by doctors or the police could be shared with other bodies without individuals’ consent or notification. This, however, might contravene as many as four of the eight data protection principles established under the Data Protection Acts 1984 and 1998.

Christopher Williams writes in the Daily Telegraph:

Senior Liberal Democrats fear the Government could force online “snooping” laws through Parliament by including them in widely-supported reforms of the fight against organised crime.

Measures to dramatically increase surveillance of the internet are due to be included in the Queen’s Speech next month. Opponents believe the Government may attempt to stifle backbench dissent by incorporating them into the Bill to set up the new National Crime Agency.

Tom Brake, chairman of the Liberal Democrat backbench home affairs committee, warned against the move.

“There are only a certain number of slots for new laws but we need this to be something that is debatable and improvable on its own terms,” he said, “not part of something that has broad support like the National Crime Agency”.

“The laws in this area are already too weak to protect individual privacy, and they need to be strengthened.”

Under the plans, the police and intelligence agencies would be granted “real time” access to vast databases of information about everything Britons do online. Details of who contacts whom, when, and where would be stored for an array of internet services such as Facebook, Google free email system Gmail, and web browsing.

Emma Draper writes on the Privacy International web site:

On Thursday 19th April, Privacy International – in partnership with the LSE, the Foundation for Information Policy Research, Open Rights Group and Big Brother Watch – hosted Scrambling for Safety 2012, a discussion of the Home Office’s new plans for mass interception in the UK. Around 200 people turned up (despite the sporadic but torrential rain!), and the number of insightful, well-informed questions from the audience proved to us that the Home Office is not going to get this one past the British public without a fight. The event was livestreamed and videos of each panel are now available to watch. Many thanks to everyone who came and contributed.

Three hours of videos covering the entire event are available via the SFS YouTube page.

Information Age reports:

The Home Secretary told MPs today that the Communications Capability Development Programme simply maintains the status quo in the face of technological progress

Theresa May, the Home Secretary, appeared before the Home Affairs Select Committee today to answer questions on the government’s proposed changes to legislation to allow enforcement agencies track and monitor electronic communciations.

May reiterated that the changes, known as the Communications Capabilities Development Programme, would not allow agencies to access any more of the content of communications than current rules. Currently, law enforcement agencies can only access data such as when telephone calls were made, or who emails were sent to.

Instead, May said, it simply adds to the number of communications channels they can monitor to include social networks and Internet telephony services. She framed this as maintaining the current level of surveillance in the face to technological progress.

“The proposal that we have is very simple,” she told MPs. “It is to ensure that we can maintain the capability that has been in existence for a number of years for the law enforcement agencies to access certain data about communications which enables them to catch criminals and terrorists and others.

Video of Mrs May’s appearance is available via the Parliament TV web site (starts at 13:47:15 – note that the stream can take 1-2 minutes to start).