Cabinet Office plans to to de-duplicate and classify its departmental electronic information / Public Technology, 19 September 2008
http://www.publictechnology.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=17349
"Active Navigation, the data discovery company, has been selected by the Cabinet Office to de-duplicate and classify the electronic information held across the department. Active Navigation was chosen after an extensive review of software products and manual alternatives, and following a pilot project in one unit of the Cabinet Office. The software will be used to analyse, categorise and organise the information currently residing in the Cabinet Office’s Microsoft NTFS (New Technology File System) prior to its transfer to the department’s new records management system."

Mountains of mobiles [& sensitive data] left in the back of London's Black Cabs / Public Technology, 19 September 2008
http://www.publictechnology.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=17343
"This year has yet again seen many high profile cases of sensitive and personal information go missing and to top it all a survey shows that Londoners are more forgetful than ever. The back of a London black cab being one of the most likely places to lose your mobile device as fretful and absentminded travellers rush onto their next destination leaving their precious mobile devices behind."

Poor showing for government whilst GPs and Banks top the Trust Table / Public Technology, 17 September 2008
http://www.publictechnology.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=17326
"UK Citizens do not necessarily trust the central or local government to safeguard their personal data whilst levels of trust for banks remain suprisingly high. Richard Thompson discusses the findings. Given the recent and frequent newspaper headlines detailing data breaches across both the public and private sector the issue of consumer trust is a hot-topic."

Tougher rules aimed at curbing population rise• Woolas believes points system will act as brake / The Guardian, 25 October 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/oct/25/immigrationpolicy-immigration-points-system
"Phil Woolas, the immigration minister, confirmed a toughening of Labour's immigration policy yesterday by indicating for the first time that the government is to use its new Australian-style points-based system to restrict the growth in Britain's population. Woolas signalled the shift in emphasis during a BBC Today programme interview yesterday given to counter the accusation that he had been gagged by the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, after his withdrawal from this week's edition of BBC TV's Question Time."

Office of National Statistics link to report?? cannot find

Bigger databases increase risks, says watchdog• Commissioner reveals inquiry into 30 breaches / The Guardian, 29 October 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/29/data-security-breach-civil-liberty
"The proliferation of ever larger centralised databases is increasing the risk of people's personal data being lost or abused, the government's official privacy watchdog claims today.The warning from the information commissioner, Richard Thomas, comes as he discloses that reported data losses have soared in the past year."

Sharia law incompatible with human rights legislation, Lords say Comments come as Lords rule on Lebanese woman seeking asylum in UK / The Guardian, 23 October 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/23/religion-islam
The House of Lords today drew stark attention to the conflict between sharia and UK law, calling the Islamic legal code "wholly incompatible" with human rights legislation.

Police losing fight to stop cocaine use Number of people taking drug now tops 800,000,Home Office figures show / The Independent, 31 October 2008
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/police-losing-fight-to-stop-cocaine-use-980248.html
"Britain is losing the war against cocaine with new figures showing a dramatic increase in people using the drug over the past decade and a slump in the volume seized by police. The proportion of adults using cocaine in the past year has increased nearly four-fold since 1996, to an estimated 810,000 people a year, Home Office figures showed."

Government reclassifying cannabis despite fall in use / The Times, 31 October 2008
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article5050871.ece
"Illegal drug use is in decline in England and Wales with cannabis use at its lowest level for a decade, according to a report. Despite the fall in use of cannabis, the Government said it was determined to press ahead with reclassifying the drug from Class C to Class B in January. The Home Office said the decision to reclassify was taken on the basis of the potential of cannabis to cause harm not on the prevalence of its use."

Report:Drug Misuse Declared: Findings from the 2007-08 British Crime Survey / Home Office,30 October 2008 http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs08/hosb1308.pdf

'Facebook generation' too lax with data, warns information watchdog / The Times 29 October 2008
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5033644.ece
A “Facebook generation” of workers are risking data breaches because they are careless with technology and personal information held on databases, the Britain’s information watchdog warned yesterday. Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, also warns that the creation of more and more databases is increasing the risks of things going wrong. He disclosed that the number of data losses reported to his office has almost doubled in the past six months."

Police fail to record crime properly, as violence rises 22% / The Times 24 October 2008
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article4998731.ece
"Serious violent crime is much worse than the Government has been claiming because police forces have been failing to record offences properly, it was disclosed yesterday."

Swindon becomes first town to ban speed cameras / The Times, 24 October 2008
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/article4998031.ece
"The black burn marks on the yellow box in Queen’s Drive will tell you all you need to know about what they think of speed cameras in Swindon. The Wiltshire borough’s Tory-run council has become the first in Britain to abolish the cameras after it refused to pay the £320,000-a-year cost of maintaining them."

Surge in police sickness costs taxpayer £90m a year / The Times, 23 October 2008
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article4995725.ece
"Police forces lost more than one million days to long-term sick leave last year at a record cost of nearly £90 million, an investigation by The Times has found. The cost has soared by more than 20 per cent in the past five years despite a drive within the police to reduce prolonged sick absences. Freedom of information requests to the 43 forces in England and Wales revealed that stress, depression, back pain and other musculo-skeletal disorders are mainly responsible."

Passports will be needed to buy mobile phones / The Sunday Times, 19 October 2008
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4969312.ece
"Everyone who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their identity on a national database under government plans to extend massively the powers of state surveillance."

Police will use new device to take fingerprints in street Civil rights campaigners say images must not be added to databases / The Guardian, 27 October 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/oct/27/project-midas-fingerprint-scanner-liberty
"Every police force in the UK is to be equipped with mobile fingerprint scanners - handheld devices that allow police to carry out identity checks on people in the street."

Faith groups spreading the word on the wings The Observer, 26 October 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/26/religion-prisonsandprobation
"Religious organisations working in British jails claim spectacular success in cutting rates of reoffending. The government wants to expand their role - but critics believe that, with entire blocks now under the control of some faith groups, tensions within prison are bound to grow."

Writing on the wall / The Guardian, 20 October 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/20/leadersandreply-libraries-andy-burnham
"The town library, byword for mousy respectability and decent endeavour, is at last showing a capacity to fight to escape from a deathly decline. At a conference in Liverpool last week Roy Clare, boss of the formerly invisible Museums, Libraries and Archives Council argued for libraries' role in lifelong learning from school to senescence, now rebranded as "Find Your Talent". Earlier this month the culture secretary, Andy Burnham, announced a review to consider how best to modernise libraries, hinting not merely at rebranding but also at a radical rethink of their contemporary purpose."

Seizures of Drugs in England and Wales 2006-07 / Home Office, 30 October 2008
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs08/hosb1208.pdf
"These statistics cover the number of drug seizures made by police forces and HM Revenue and Customs in 2006-07, as well as the quantities seized."

Use of Alcohol Among Children and Young People / Department for Children, Schools and Families, 30 October 2008
http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/research/programmeofresearch/projectinformation.cfm?projectId=15587&type=5&resultspage=21
"This research looked at barriers to young people getting involved with alcohol and barriers to stopping drinking."

Drug Misuse Declared: Findings from the 2007-08 British Crime Survey / Home Office, 30 October 2008
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs08/hosb1308.pdf
"These statistics cover self-reported drug use for adults and young people in England and Wales from the 2007-08 British Crime Survey."

Google strikes deal over online library / The Financial Times, October 28 2008
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/93574d3e-a52d-11dd-b4f5-000077b07658.html
"Google is to pay $125m to settle lawsuits filed in 2005 by authors and publishers that charged the group with “massive infringement”, challenging its book scanning project that digitised and offered excerpts without the permission of copyright holders. The settlement with authors and book publishers paves the way for the creation of a legal and financial framework for the digital distribution of millions of books online in the US."