| Service | Description |
|---|---|
| A new UK digital rights group is set up. |
The Open Rights Group (Org) will serve as a hub for other cyber-rights groups campaigning on digital rights issues. Org emulates US's Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) digital rights group. |
| Briefing urges MPs to stop compulsory ID Cards plan. |
MPs will debate the ID Cards Bill on 13 February. Liberty have prepared a briefing detailing their support for amendments made by the House of Lords - including those which ensure the scheme will be compulsory. |
| CBI warns of ID card 'flaws'. |
Business leaders today voiced support for an identity card scheme for the first time, but warned that the proposed scheme would not be robust enough. |
| Doubts over passport face scans. |
Technology to be incorporated into new UK passports by end 2005 has a 10% failure rate. |
| Ex-chairwoman of Liberty, Fiona Mactaggart, supports ID cards. |
In an interview with the Guardian, she goes on to say that her about-swing was due to developments in biometric technology and the 'opportunities it offers'. |
| Ex-MI5 chief sparks ID card row. |
Stella Rimington asserted "ID cards may be helpful in all kinds of things but I don't think they are necessarily going to make us any safer." |
| Fingerprinting for new passport applicants is a possibility. |
New passport applicants could still have to provide fingerprints despite the government dropping its ID card plans, the Home Office has confirmed. |
| Free anonymising browser debuts. |
Web users worried about privacy can now use a modified version of Firefox that lets them browse the net anonymously. The Torpark browser uses technology backed by digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation. It has been created by Hacktivismo - an international coalition of hackers, human rights workers, lawyers and artists. |
| ID cards may breach human rights, say MPs. |
The joint parliamentary committee on human rights states: "The information which the bill envisages will be held on the register allows for significant intrusion into private life." |
| ID cards to be issued in three years after Lords drops its opposition. |
The House of Lords accepted the amendment that anyone applying for a new biometric passport before January 2010 could opt out of having an ID card. See the latest on campaigning against ID cards and databases in the UK. |
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