Today on BBC Radio Four news there was an item that last year a record 720,000 people were added to Britain's DNA database - making it world's largest. The item said also that 4,400 DNA matches were made with DNA retrieved from crime scenes( the figure stood at a reported 3000 last year). Watch the power of propaganda at work: This has about the same informational value as reporting that the amount of fly tipping increased by 1500 tonnes or every tree in the UK as developed another year ring under its bark. Its just business as usual, natural growth in meaningless numbers when people are paid to perform meaningless tasks. What is more relevant is the clear-up rate which is still below 50% and this probably has something to do with the fact that according to the same report the number of samples taken from crime scenes dropped by 20 per cent in the same period! Here we have it. The Police are wasting their time building up their data base at the detriment of solving actual crimes. For this database to be useful a child can see that the Police actually has to increase the number of forensic investigations on crime scenes proportionally and they should stop reporting DNA matched with victims, carers, neighbours and other non criminals as soving crime. It just eliminetes innocent people from flawed Police enquiries. The number of actual arrests when they match a criminal's DNA with DNA found at a crime scene is not reported by the National Policing Improvement Agency, but according to figures estimated by GeneWatch is nothing to brag about. Note the power of propaganda. The European Court of Justice is widely expected to rule that samples obtained during police investigations should be destroyed at the end of an inquiry rather than loaded on to the NDNAD because it is in breach of Data Protection and Human Rights legislation. The government spin doctors are just feeding this type of mis information to prepare the way for finding a way out not having to destroy all these samples. What do you make of all this propaganda? Are they softening up the public? Join discussion...

In this paper I triedto do a digest of the different terms, so that when you are tired at the end of the day or have to do a quick preparation for an IAM workshop you can get the concepts straight in your head once more. Do you agree with the definitions approach? Join discussion...

Because the Police now perceive the need to drag just about everyone and their dog into the Police Station for DNA sampling, the two pages of caution urged upon the Police in the Police and Criminal Evidence ACT (PACE) before taking such a drastic step are now routinely thrown into the wind by the Police who are taught by their superiors to always quote the one get out clause known as " “The necessity for a prompt arrest” even when these arrests happen days after aledged incidents and the identities of the people thus inconvenienced and stigmatized are pecfectly well known to the Police. Not only does this break the third principle of the Data Protection act 1998, at a local level this totally undermines confidence in the Police and kills any community policing initiatives, where the Police tries to mediate instead of being so heavy handed. Join discussion...

The tide is turning against the big brother DNA data base the Association of Chief Police Officers would like us all to subscribe to. Some have even made the comparison to the Poll Tax rebellion. Join discussion...

Does it bug you when over zealous IT professionals try to blow a simple Proof of Concept lab test in a full blown Pilot, when the requirements of the new IAM system are still unclear, let alone far from implemented? Join discussion...

Now this must be good news. At last we are seeing up take and backing from names that count and could push acceptance of InfoCards into the mainstream.. From Kim Cameron's blog: "Led by Equifax, Google, Microsoft, Novell, Oracle, and PayPal, plus nine leaders in the technology community, the group established the Information Card Foundation (ICF) to promote the rapid build-out and adoption of Internet-enabled digital identities using Information Cards." Join discussion...

We start to see it happen and I know at least one Indian company that claim they have the largest number of IAM implementations under their belt of one of the main stream IAM vendors. What do you see as the barriers and solutions to outsourcing what in fact is an important part of your security to a company that may be on the other side of the world? Join discussion...

Some commentators say "he has lost the plot". I say spot on David Davis for mentioning as an example of the erosion of our civil liberties the abominable national DNA data base. Join discussion...

What is your experience with IAM tenders? Do they come up with the best solution and do they represent value for money? Join discussion...

Is it worth worrying about small snippits of personal information being past with web services messages, when personal information is exposed by bucket loads in systems development environments? ..... Join discussion...