Dear MHK/MLC.  Thank you for reading this, we appreciate it.
Petitioners were asked to read a detailed argument before signing the petition. In just 6 days we have achieved over 100 signatures from informed members of the public. By contrast, the public consultation to the Children Bill 2010 received 76 responses after a 6 week consultation and the Minister then cancelled the Bill.

The response to the petition shows that there will be considerable public opposition to any form of centralised Citizens Database.

Also, please see the political comment in the Isle of Man Examiner raising concerns that our select committee system appears compromised.

Finally, see the letter from Alan Croll pointing out that we already have the Residence Act if a name and address register was ever needed.

Here is the full petition.

November's Tynwald contains a report on the Jury system. Many Manx residents aren't on the electoral roll, so can't be called for jury service. The Committee proposes a "compulsory database" of all adults fit for jury service.

But, and it's a bit BUT, civil servants have slyly hijacked this proposal and Tynwald's also being asked to agree to ‘an overarching citizens database’. They want our private information on child benefit, housing, work permits, library membership etc. to be linked in one database...and to make it a condition of using a public service that you are on the database. No electronic ID – no service.

Civil servants want to log people who are medically unfit for jury service. The Cabinet Office would want to know, for example, of a mother who was unfit due to post natal depression. But if that mother was, for her own private reasons, not on the database where would she stand? Social services could, say, judge her unfit and remove her children but she, having no electronic ID, would not be able to get help from her GP. We are to be coerced onto the database via the carrot and the stick.

Such “voluntary compulsion” makes life easy for Government - but flies in the face of British and Manx social, political and legal tradition. It erodes your individual choice and makes for authoritarian and controlling regimes. Having our identity checked by officials would become part of Manx life. This is a profound cultural change and something we shouldn't let happen. We should not give strangers in Government the key to our private lives.
This mechanism for recording and reporting almost all significant civil acts, including our health, civil servants would gain powers to intervene in the daily lives of Manx residents easily and extensively.

Control of all our personal information on the database passes from the individual to State. Government would, in reality, own the electronic ID and could easily reserve the power to cancel it, thus locking people out of services.

The Isle of Wight council runs a central database. Look what happened to this Council Tenant:

Tell your GP a secret - and 900 council staff may have access to it
http://www.computerweekly.com/blog/Public-Sector-IT/Tell-your-GP-a-secret-and-900-council-staff-may-have-access-to-it

In 2008 Elizabeth Dove (a pseudonym) saw her GP to ask what could be done about her depression. Some time later Dove had a dispute with her local council, a matter entirely unrelated to her health. Pursuing her complaint to the Isle of Wight council, she submitted a request under the Data Protection Act to be sent all the information the authority held on her. To her dismay, she received sensitive data from her GP health records. It came from officials at the local council’s housing department – with whom she had the dispute. It turns out that her health data was held on a joint council and primary care trust system “Swift”. She hadn’t consented to her health records being shared with the local council.

– GPs across England routinely share mental health data with PCTs which share it with thousands of local council staff.
– GP Paul Cundy says the case of Elizabeth Dove is an ominous warning for the sharing of Summary Care Records data under “implied consent”.

So what starts out as a simple list of people ends up as the 'overarching database' that can be used to monitor our personal lives.

Do you trust Government with your data? Based on my experience, I don't. Centralised data is a single target for hackers, and we all know how many 'accidents' our government has had already. Hackers usually get through, and will this time get all our information.

The Select Committee ignores Human Rights issues. A government must ask us every single time it wants to use our data. Other countries, including Scotland, ignored this and are now having to do a U-turn and stop sharing family information without consent.

Don't let this be a 'done deal' - it will affect Manx residents lives immeasurably. The Cabinet Office has already prepared a detailed policy for Tynwald to approve in December. Our newly elected Tynwald, comprised of politicians who never proposed anything like this, will be expected to rubber stamp the database.

They can refuse, of course. The question is will they? Tell them not to - sign the petition today!