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The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

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Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#111

Post by IanCal »

dangerface wrote: post #83
ptaipale wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"will aggregate" This was an announced intention in April this year. The implementation of this decision probably needs further approvals and ratifications, and even after that, it takes time. The source material does not even exist, and I expect that in some EU countries collecting this data of all citizens will not be possible due to country legislation. Thus this is certainly far from complete, if even started at…

So we should wait until every one's details are leaked before deciding this is a bad idea because it will inevitably leak? This is like the police refusing to respond to death threats until the person is dead.

What they seem to be saying is not that the data hasn't leaked, but that it likely does not even exist. If that's true, a headline of "X has been copied" would be wrong if X didn't exist.

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#112

Post by gadders »

dangerface wrote: post #89
gadders wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say it like it's a bad thing. The UK has a lot more in common politically and philosophically with the US than the EU. TBH they should rename NAFTA to the North Atlantic Free Trade Area and we'd all be better off.

>The UK has a lot more in common politically and philosophically with the US than the EU. Not even close, let's take a basic fundamental US principle like the right to free speech, it doesn't exist in the UK. The UK has had relation ships with most of the European countries for longer than the US has existed. The UK has more import and exports with the EU that the US and because of geographic constraints this will no…

>>Not even close, let's take a basic fundamental US principle like the right to free speech, it doesn't exist in the UK.

Sadly, this is correct, but I believe the UK has less constrained speech than continental Europe. I'd love to see a right to free speech brought into force in the UK

>>The UK has had relation ships with most of the European countries for longer than the US has existed.

This is also true, but neglects the fact that US was founded by Britain and was a British colony for 170 years. US law is based on English common law.

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#113

Post by spoovy »

benj111 wrote: post #56
Zenst wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will agree the UK has never really embraced the whole EU project as it has become. I also agree that in many votes, the UK has been the stumbling block and with that did anybody in the UK and those wanting to keep the UK in the EU ever asked themselves - what is best for the EU? I did and that is why I voted leave myself - better for the EU and the UK. That was my reason for voting as I did. Equally, many area's in…

So how should the UK leave the EU? As the vote wasn't held on the basis of leaving without a deal, and you don't want a 2nd vote to ask an actionable question.

It wasn't held on the basis on leaving with a deal either. It was a high level question which at that level is simple -- leave or stay. That simplicity doesn't change however complex the implementation details are (or can be made to be).

And a second vote would solve nothing -- why would the losers honour the outcome of a second referendum when the losers of the first refused to honour that one?

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#114

Post by submeta »

submeta wrote: post #58

I reckon the five eyes were sharing these kinds of infos for years. After the Snowden revelations I tend to think that there ain‘t no info about us citizens that the three letter organizations don‘t have or cannot have. Phone call logs, personal infos, medical records, everything we can think of. If they are interested in something, they‘ll get it. Sucks big time. But it seems ain‘t nothing we can do about it.

The thing is: The moment you feel you could be observed or that you have no room for private thought or discussion, you start to censor yourself. Political discourse starts to get weakened.

My gut feeling is this: Many people don't dare to express their true opinions even in supposedly private channels, fearing that these thoughts / ideas might come back at them years later. And I don't even mean radical thoughts.

In a world where we non-americans are asked for our cellphone passwords, laptops, social media handles and passwords, how can we dare to criticize world affairs?

Or imagine you are a young ambitious person who wants to change something by participating in the political process. You spend years getting somewhere, and then comes an info out of nowhere about your past and stops your carreer abruptly (like you cheated on your university diploma or something like that).

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#115

Post by notimetorelax »

dangerface wrote: post #91
Normal_gaussian wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The title is misleading. The allegation is not that the UK authorities made a copy and gave it directly to the US authorities. The allegation is that the UK authorities made copies for its own and its contractors use. These contractors include US companies- IBM is one example. It really sounds like poor regard for security measures / lack of ownership and enforcement in the UK rather than anything malicious. It is al…

> It really sounds like poor regard for security measures / lack of ownership and enforcement in the UK rather than anything malicious. The UK understand exactly how to do Passport security if they did it in a insecure way it was with malicious intent that gives them "plausible" deniability.

UK is not a single person, what one government body does may be very different from the other.

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#116

Post by dangerface »

> UK made illegal copies of classified personal information from a database reserved for members of the passport-free Schengen travel zone.

The UK is not in the Schengen travel zone and had no right to be accessing the data or sharing it with other foreign powers.

The problem is that too much power is collected in one place that encourages bad actors to weaken security so that they can later do a grab and dash with "Plausible deniability".

When people raise this warning it is dismissed as fear mongering, when the fears turn out to be justified people side step the issue and argue that the title should be millions instead of all.

Some people have argued that the EU do not have a database of EU citizens fingerprints, but they have been building that database since 2004 [2].

These massive databases of personal information represent too much of a risk and should not exist. The only way to protect power from corruption is to distribute the power rather than consolidate it.

[1] https://euobserver.com/justice/145530 [2] https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-eu-fingerprints/fingerprin...

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#117

Post by [deleted] »

arethuza wrote: post #25
martin_a wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm totally with you. I wonder if UK should have left the EU even earlier and saved themselves and us a lot of hassle. I hope that the EU-friendly states might join again, but I think they would need to break up the UK for that, don't they?

It could all get very messy - I think it is is highly likely that Scotland will want a second independence referendum as a major argument for staying in the union the last time was that it meant Scotland would stay in the EU. However, I also think the current government is also unlikely to allow a second referendum, and it wouldn't surprise me if the Scottish Government decided to have one anyway. Edit: To be clear:…

[deleted]

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#118

Post by tomxor »

mdpye wrote: post #81
_Understated_ wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's pretty well understood that in majority we don't want to leave, the other half are mostly a combination of naive, manipulated and coerced based on false claims and social media... What? There was a vote. A vote where everyone elligible had the chance to voice their opinion and the majority (albeit slim) said "we want out". As for the slur of being naieve and manipulated that's bullshit (from my standpoint anyw…

But the vote was poorly informed and actively manipulated. Many people voted leave as a protest against the state of the country, not the EU, and have said so. And many of the most persuasive statements made by the leave campaign were shown to be deliberate falsehoods. I respect the desires of those who genuinely wish to leave the EU, but the referendum result was not anything close to a true measurement of that, and…

> Many people voted leave as a protest against the state of the country, not the EU, and have said so.

This is true in my experience, almost all arguments I have ever heard in person are of this form... I don't know where this came from but suspect the concept of "Leave == Change" was likely seeded on social media.

> The referendum was about many things, and most of them weren't our membership of the EU.

Yes, this is the source of the problem, even though manipulation is more of a problem than it used to be, this vote is particularly vulnerable to it because it's so poorly defined - it's basically impossible to have a sane and comprehensive debate about the topic so instead people naturally cling onto something that fits their values, and it's extremely easy to just fabricate those things in this case.

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#119

Post by stordoff »

bonjurkes wrote: post #79
miahi wrote: post #7

The title is incorrect. The Schengen Information System does not keep data for "all EU citizens", it only keeps such data for wanted persons, missing/stolen identity documents or objects (like cars, boats and so on). There is no centralized database for EU citizens photos or fingerprints (not even at national level in many countries).

It also includes information of 3rd world country citizens'. Like passport info, photos, fingerprints, their visit to Schengen countries. When you apply for visa for Schengen countries, your info will be recorded on SIS. And stored there for 5 years. Note: EU uses the term "3rd world country" term themselves and Im citizen of one of those countries.

Do you mean "Third country"? I have not come across the EU using "Third world country" officially.

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#120

Post by cromulent »

bonjurkes wrote: post #79
miahi wrote: post #7

The title is incorrect. The Schengen Information System does not keep data for "all EU citizens", it only keeps such data for wanted persons, missing/stolen identity documents or objects (like cars, boats and so on). There is no centralized database for EU citizens photos or fingerprints (not even at national level in many countries).

It also includes information of 3rd world country citizens'. Like passport info, photos, fingerprints, their visit to Schengen countries. When you apply for visa for Schengen countries, your info will be recorded on SIS. And stored there for 5 years. Note: EU uses the term "3rd world country" term themselves and Im citizen of one of those countries.

The EU uses the term "third country" which means a country that is not part of the union.

https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/observatories/eurwork/indust...

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