I am currently out of the the office but this e-mail will be forwarded to me at tim.clement-jones@dlapiper.com

DLA Piper are one of the UK’s largest firms of copyright lawyers. Lord Clement-Jones draws a £70,000 / year salary from this company.

Conflict of interest, much?

To make matters worse, securesuite (dot) net used to be controlled by Chase, and used to be used by their Verified by Visa implementation.

You can see the old link for yourself on the demo.chase.com link on:
http://www.google.com/search?q=chase+verified+by+visa

This is all shockingly awful. It’s kind of sad, too, to see that whoever controls securesuite (dot) net is using a VeriSign certificate to do so. You’d think VeriSign might make sure it’s not handing out SSL certificates to known criminals.

You also might think Chase would care to do a little more SEO policing of “Chase Verified by Visa”. I tried calling Visa about this and they refer all calls about Verified by Visa to Chase. I tried calling Chase, and they said Visa controls Verified by Visa, and that they can’t do anything about it.

What really roils me, though, is that it’s impossible to make purchases on some websites (such as Delta Airlines’ website) without going through the Verified by Visa charade.

• The deployment of new technologies should be subject to an approvals process that includes an independent privacy-impact assessment.
• The ICO should be given the power – and the resources – to regulate technology implementations, including the power to order them to be changed or shut down on privacy grounds.
• Recorded license-plate data should be considered “personal information” under the Data Protection Act.
• Police and other authorities should be required to obtain a warrant before “flagging” a license plate – just like they have to if they want to trace your mobile phone records.
• Police should be required to apply to the courts before conducting ANPR fishing expeditions or “lockdowns.” They would have to satisfy a magistrate or judge that the operation would be proportionate.
• The locations of ANPR cameras – and planned mobile-unit deployments – should be made public (as currently happens with speed cameras.)
• There should be strict legal limits on the length of time for which ANPR data is retained, who can access, transfer or analyse that data and for what reasons.
• A licensing scheme is needed to regulate private companies, such as parking enforcement firms and marketeers, that use ANPR.
• It should be a criminal offence to collect or access stored ANPR data without a warrant or license.

Feel free to add more ideas or challenge mine!

A last thought: In 2007 1.7 million people signed a petition against road pricing in the UK, partly on privacy grounds. The Government learnt their lesson: don’t debate change publicly if the public don’t stand to benefit from it…