CHANNEL M

Dave appeared briefly on the Channel M breakfast news on Monday 10th December. He should get his hands on a DVD of the footage soon, and will enquire about putting it on Manchester NO2ID's website.

"TAKING LIBERTIES" SCREENINGS

Following recent screenings of Taking Liberties [4] by Manchester University's Amnesty International society, and by Projectile Films, we're going to try to get screenings of the film organised at least once every two months, through political parties, unions, schools, student societies and other organisations. We have several copies of the DVD to loan out, and permission from the distributors to screen it without royalty payments.

It was suggested that we could arrange a screening on the big screen outside the Triangle, by talking to people at the Cornerhouse cinema.

We discussed contacting schools to arrange screenings of the film, as part of the PSHE, Citizenship or General Studies courses. The film is rated 15. We should look into what kind of approval we'd need to get for screening the film in schools, then contacting individual schools and education authorities.

Other ideas included the BBC Blast organisation, and the Zion Arts Centre.

[4]  http://www.noliberties.com/

LOCAL ELECTIONS

With local elections coming up in 2008, it's time for Manchester NO2ID to lay the groundwork. In 2007, we contacted every candidate and party standing in Manchester and asked them for their opinions on ID cards. We also arranged for a council motion vote just ahead of the local elections and recorded the voting pattern for the incumbents.

For 2008, we're going to go better. We're going to expand our operations to the whole of Greater Manchester, contacting all the parties and candidates across the area for their ID card stances. We're hoping to get motions proposed and voted on in all the Greater Manchester
councils.

We'll also be working with local parties to organise photo opportunities around the NO2ID Pledge [5], and plant stories in local media, as well as the parties' own campaign material.

Dave has been compiling a list of contacts for local political parties and will be making contact with them in early 2008.

[5]  http://www.no2id.net/pledge

GIG

We're still looking at organising a NO2ID fundraiser / awareness raising gig in 2008. Currently we're looking at a number of artists and venues.

GMPTE TRAVEL PASS

A recent NO2ID newsletter [6] revealed the Scottish "Entitlement Card" scheme - a discount travel pass which is being used to collate and share data across several branches of local and national government.

The Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive [7] (GMPTE) is soon to introduce Oyster-style smartcard transport passes, as part of an integrated nationwide scheme - your GMPTE travel pass can be used for concessionary travel across the country. While this represents convenience, there are obvious concerns about privacy, data storage and tracking.

Manchester NO2ID has been trying to contact councillors on the Passenger Transport Authority, so far with little success.

[6]  http://www.no2id.net/news/newsletters/newsletter.php?issue=82
[7]  http://www.gmpte.com/

MANCHESTER AGAINST ROAD TOLLS

Manchester NO2ID does not inherently oppose or support any congestion charging schemes. They are beyond the remit of our campaign. However Automatic Numberplate Recognition (ANPR) cameras are used to enforce such systems.

These cameras are already used to track people's movements around London and throughout the UK's motorway networks. This tracking happens
without authorisation or supervision, for any purpose, at any time. Information is recorded to build up databases of people's movements.

Manchester NO2ID opposes the use of ANPR cameras as part of the Database State, and hence opposes any congestion charging scheme which uses them. Until we have legal protections, which cannot be overturned on a whim by the Government, which stop data being routinely recorded and accessed without oversight or supervision, such schemes represent a massive intrusion into our privacy.

Manchester Against Road Tolls have kindly contacted Manchester NO2ID and offered to work with us on opposing ANPR cameras as part of a congestion charging scheme. We will work with them in future on this matter.

Dave will contact MART again soon to discuss strategies.

THE BIG OPT OUT

The Big Opt Out campaign [8] highlights the dangers of the NHS Spine system for storing medical records on centralised, interlinked databases. They have a form letter for opting out of the database. However, there are three ways to opt out of the database - your personal information, demographics, and section 10 of the Data Protection Act 1998 [9] ("Right to prevent processing likely to cause damage or distress").

Dave needs to contact the Big Opt Out and find out which of these three methods is covered by the form letter, and how to opt out of the others.

[8]  http://www.nhsconfidentiality.org/
[9]  http://www.opsi.gov.uk/Acts/acts1998/ukpga_19980029_en_1

FUTURE EVENTS

Our next street stall will be on Saturday 12th January in St. Anne's Square, Manchester, from 1pm to 3pm.

Our next monthly meeting will be on Wednesday 16th January in the upstairs function room of the Town Hall Tavern, Tib Lane, Manchester, from 7pm to 9pm.