What’s not mentioned in the BBC News article linked, but was described as what the proposal actually is on the Today programme this morning was that The Government^tm are going to ‘force’ social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to give them access to the friends lists of users. Not actually see what messages pass between them, just the lists of friends.

Needless to say, there has been an immediate outcry about how terrible this is, what a total disregard for our liberties, totalitarian state etc this is. You might expect me to be joining that outcry.

But woooaaaaaahhh there.

Erm, Facebook already allows any logged in user to see the list of friends of any user. As does Twitter. In fact, Twitter even lets anybody see what people are saying to each other – it’s the whole point of it!

So, much as I’d like to join in with the gubnint-kicking on this, I’m afraid there’s no story there.

Of course, the fashionable knee-jerk response from many hearing this new this morning will almost certainly have been ‘it doesn’t matter, they’re only prisoners – they don’t have any rights anyway’ etc. Which is, of course, ‘a point of view’.

But whatever your views about whatever rights prisoners might not have, don’t you think their families have rights ? Their children ? Might you not think a five year old child – whatever it’s parent might have done – has the right not to be the subject of a hit from, say, a rival criminal gang ?

Even if you don’t think that – might you think subjecting the families of criminals whose personal data has been lost in this way to potential criminal attack themselves is not a total waste of police time ?

In other news, the BBC news website also has a handy aggregation page of other epic cases of government data loss.

“ID cards – do you still think they’re a good idea ?”

It’s almost unsporting of me these days to continually be referring to instances of this or that security breach when it comes to Government’s ability to keep secure our personal data, whilst at the same time the Government continually pedals the line that the proposed national identity card will be safe and secure, prevent fraud, protect us from terrorists, and end the Looming Credit Crunch(tm).

At present there’s been no evidence made public to prove one way or another, but it does seem just too much of a coincidence that the thieves might have been expecting a van full of painting & decorating equipment and got lucky; it does seem much more likely that this was a theft-to-order – that the thieves knew full well what was in the van, where it had come from, where it was going to, and when the best point for the sting was likely to be.

For once, there’s no real accusation of incompetence to be made (though Keith Vaz does ask why such documents weren’t being transported in a more secure manner) – against such a determined professional gang, there’s probably little anybody could have done better which would have made any difference.

Which is my whole point.

If a highly organised professional gang can run a heist on a van load of blank passports and visa documents, they can run a heist on a van load of blank ID cards. If they’ve got somebody on the inside – which in this case surely they must have done – then so much the easier for them.

So again, the reported benefits of the national ID card scheme – to guard against fraud and terrorism – are just pie-in-the-sky flannel, which will do nothing to keep us safe and secure, but will just provide another revenue stream for organised crime, criminalise the innocent, and potentially have a counterproductive effect on security by encouraging complacency.

The passport service said the stolen documents could not be used by thieves because of their hi-tech embedded chip security features.

But fraud experts say they can still be used as a form of identification and even for travel in countries where the chip technology is not used.

Indeed; I wonder if they are the same hi-tech embedded chip security features which are in use in the Oyster card used for paying for public transport in London?

The hi-tech embedded chip security features which themselves have been hacked – the details of how to do so being due to be published this coming October?