Privacy and Voting

I had the pleasure of voting in the London Mayoral election this morning. At a time when voting turnout is at an all time low it never ceases to amaze me how inconvenient it is to vote. The first problem is simply that you can only vote on one day if you want to physically vote. Why not open up the stations for a few days instead. cost will no doubt play a part but if that would help then why not. There is always the postal votes but I think that is so open to fraud (as been seen on numerous occasions) that I do not wish to utilize that route.

When I stood at the desk this morning the man behind the desk took the election notice I had been sent and for some reason asked me to state the name and address that appeared on the form. Not sure for what purpose and he did not have anything useful to say about why he had to ask other than it was a legal requirement. No ID was asked for. Very strange and somewhat totally ineffective when it comes to ensuring one person one vote.

But this was not the worst. As they noted down a tick against my name on his sheet to show I had voted he read out a number and wrote it down. Three forms were then ripped from the pad (one for each of the election or Mayor, Assembly and another which had no names only parties which I do not understand.

I went to the booth where I put a cross in the various boxes. This is where the process changed from last elections. I was not allowed to fold the forms and had to put them into the box flat and upside down. No doubt to allow for effective computer automated counting to take place. As I turned over the forms I notice a number on the bottom. It was the number read out when I as at the desk. And this ladies and gentlemen is the crux.

It turns out that voting is no longer an anonymous affair. They now have a slip of paper with my political preferences linked to my name and address. I questioned the officials on this and they stated that yes this is the case but the information is only used in the case of fraud and under a court order. Really.

What is almost certain is that when the form is scanned in it will scan the number/bar code on the back and there will be a computer record of my vote against my personal details. This is a staggering leap in breach of privacy. As a person who normally sits on the side of government and privacy (I support ID cards) this is a step too far.

Why this inconsistency? It's simple. Most data the government has on me is about what I do. They have some financial data on me which I am ok with as I belong to a society and that requires taxation. So this data is necessary. The amount of tax is not relevant to the need to capture financial data. Taxation levels is another blog. They could find out where I travel to and from from passport records and I am ok with that. Knowing I went to the US or Corfu on holiday is no major privacy issue and the benefits of the system outweigh an almost negligible inconvenience.

But to know what my political preferences are is to know what I think and that is a step too far. The opportunity for such information to be abused is frightening. Today policy in government mostly revolves around money. They can set policies for certain areas based upon money (poverty and wealth) and they can even do it on demographics to some extent (racial and age for example). But with this information in Gov hands (and we have seen several displays of incompetence lately in data handling) who knows where this data will end up and how it could be used.

The line has been crossed and it has been crossed silently by the authorities. To extend government data into what we think is the beginning of the end for real privacy.