I always find draft legislation amusing; in this case I am sure my friends in the Police would be reasonably happy with the proposal because their view of the law seems to be “that which you exercise in order to nick someone who needs nicking” – rather than the cause-and-effect, behaviour-changing “absolute” law in which Daily Mail readers seem to believe… but nonetheless:

[www.spy.org.uk]

Identity Card Bill – 10 years in jail for going on strike or accidentaly causing a systems crash ?

We will have a lot more to say about the newly published Identity Card Bill, but if you are a Civil Servant, a Trades Unionist or an IT Contractor you should be very worried by:

31 Tampering with the Register etc

“(3) For the purposes of this section the cases in which conduct causes a modification of information recorded in the Register include-

(a) where it contributes to a modification of such information; and

(b) where it makes it more difficult or impossible for such information to be retrieved in a legible form from a computer on which it is stored by the Secretary of State, or contributes to making that more difficult or impossible.”

[…]

Presumably this is the Home Office’s amateur attempt at drafting some infinitely wide power to cope with Denial of Service attacks on the National Identity Register systems.

However, this also seems to be threatening any Civil Servant or IT sub contractor with up to 10 years in jail if they are engaged in Industrial Action such as a Strike or a Work To Rule etc. !

It also would also penalise IT disasters such as the recent loss of service caused by a software upgrade etc. at the Department for Work and Pensions. […]