Brits: Act now to stop Parliament from gutting privacy protections

By Cory Doctorow at 11:18 pm Monday, Mar 2

The UK campaigning group NO2ID have spotted an incredibly sneaky and scary codicil in the new Coroners and Justice Bill: Clause 152 allows any Minister to take any information gathered for any purpose and use it for any other purpose. In other words, all the privacy protection built into British law just pops like a soap bubble under this principle. They've got a bunch of things they need you to do to stop this:

Write to your MP - www.WriteToThem.com makes it very easy - and tell him or her that you REFUSE CONSENT to having your information shared under any 'INFORMATION SHARING ORDER', and ask him or her to vote to have CLAUSE 152 removed entirely from the CORONERS AND JUSTICE BILL.

Clause 152 of the Coroners and Justice Bill - currently being debated by the UK Parliament - would allow any Minister by order to take any information gathered for one purpose from anywhere, and use it for any other purpose.

Your information, your family's information, arbitrarily used without your consent or even knowledge. The very reverse of 'Data Protection'.

An 'Information Sharing Order', as defined in Clause 152, would permit your information to be trafficked and abused, not only all across government and the public sector - it would also reach into the private sector. And it would even allow transfer of information across international borders.

Stop Clause 152! (via /.)