Government database

A government database collects information for various reasons, including climate monitoring, securities law compliance, geological surveys, patent applications and grants, surveillance, national security, border control, law enforcement, public health, voter registration, vehicle registration, social security, and statistics.

This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (October 2013)

Canada

• National DNA Data Bank, a system established under the DNA Identification Act of 1998 to hold DNA profiles of persons convicted of designated offenses and DNA profiles obtained from crime scenes. Profiles may only be used for law enforcement purposes. At the end of September 2013 the National DNA Data Bank held 277,590 profiles in the Convicted Offender Index and 88,892 profiles in the Crime Scene Index with from 500 to 600 new samples received each week.
• Government Electronic Directory Services, a directory of Canadian federal public servants throughout the country, including names, titles, telephone and facsimile numbers, departmental names, office locations, and e-mail addresses for some public servants.
• Homeless Individuals and Families Information System, a free client management application created in 1995 to assist service providers in managing their operations and collecting information about the population using homeless shelters, client bookings, provision of goods and services, housing placement, and case management. Its data may be exported and incorporated into the National Homelessness Information System. Personal identifiers are replaced by unique, encrypted identifiers before the data is exported to ensure that client information is and remains anonymous.
• National Homelessness Information System, a database system designed to collect and analyze baseline data on the use of homeless shelters in Canada. It includes anonymized data imported from Homeless Individuals and Families Information System systems as well as data shared by some cities and provinces that do not use that system.
• System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval, a filing system developed for the Canadian Securities Administrators to facilitate the electronic filing of securities information, allow for the public dissemination of Canadian securities information collected in the securities filing process, and provide electronic communication between electronic filers, agents and the Canadian Securities Administrator.

European Union

• Eurodac system, a computerised central database established in December 2000 for comparing fingerprints of asylum seekers and some categories of illegal immigrants and a system for electronic data transmission between EU countries and the database. The database contains fingerprints, EU country of origin, sex, place and date of asylum application or apprehension of the person, reference number, date fingerprints were taken, and the date when the data was transmitted.
• Data Retention Directive, a directive passed by the legislative body of the European Union on 15 December 2005 that requires telecommunication operators to retain metadata (type of service, date, time, and size or duration, sender and receiver addresses, ..., but not the audio, video, or digital content) for telephone, Internet, and other telecommunication services for periods of not less than six months and not more than two years from the date of the communication as determined by each EU member state and, upon request, to make the data available to various governmental bodies. Access to this information is not limited to investigation of serious crimes, nor is a warrant required for access. The Data Protection Directive regulates the processing of personal data within the European Union.

United Kingdom

Various government bodies maintain databases about citizens and residents of the United Kingdom. Under the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, legal provisions exist that control and restrict the collection, storage, retention, and use of information in government databases.

Active

Wikinews has related news:

• British National Fingerprint Database begins without parliamentary consultation

• National Fingerprint Database: British Police hold 6.5 million fingerprint records in a searchable database called IDENT1. There is increasing use of roadside fingerprinting - using new police powers to check identity. Concerns have been raised over the unregulated use of biometrics in schools, affecting young children. On 4 December 2008, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that the UK Government's policy of retaining fingerprints of individuals suspected, but then not convicted, of a crime was a breach of the Article 8 Right to respect for private and family life that could not be justified on the grounds of the prevention of disorder or crime.
• National DNA Database: Over 3.4 million DNA samples are on file in the National DNA Database. DNA data is shared across borders through data-sharing agreements through the European Union and other international organizations. On 4 December 2008, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that the UK Government's policy of retaining DNA samples and profiles of individuals suspected, but then not convicted, of a crime was a breach of the Article 8 Right to respect for private and family life that could not be justified on the grounds of the prevention of disorder or crime.
• Public transport: In London, the Oyster card payment system can track the movement of individual people through the public transport system, although an anonymous option is available, while the London congestion charge uses computer imaging to track car number plates.
• Road vehicle movement tracking: Across the country efforts have been increasingly under way to track closely all road vehicle movements, initially using a nationwide network of roadside cameras connected to automatic number plate recognition systems. These have tracked, recorded, and stored the details of all journeys undertaken on major roads and through city centres and the information is stored for five years. In the longer term mandatory onboard vehicle telematics systems are also suggested, to facilitate road charging (see vehicle excise duty). Part 2, Chapter 1 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 creates a new regulation for, and instructs the Secretary of State to prepare a code of practice towards, closed-circuit television and automatic number plate recognition.
• Telephone and Internet surveillance: In 2008 plans were being made to collect data on people's phone, e-mail and web-browsing habits and were expected to be included in the Communications Data Bill. The "giant database" would include telephone numbers dialed, the websites visited and addresses to which e-mails are sent "but not the content of e-mails or telephone conversations."
• Law Enforcement Data Service (LEDS): This will be a merging of the Police National Computer (PNC) and Police National Database (PND) in 2020. Police Databases on Liberty.
• Database of rogue landlords: Information available from gov.uk Database of rogue landlords and property agents under the Housing and Planning Act 2016

Disbanded

• National Identity Register: On 21 December 2010 the Identity Documents Act 2010 received Royal Assent. The Act repealed the Identity Cards Act 2006, scrapping the mandatory ID card scheme and associated National Identity Register (including ContactPoint) that had been in use on a limited or voluntary basis since November 2008, but which was never fully implemented. Foreign nationals from outside the European Union, however, continue to require an ID card for use as a biometric residence permit under the provisions of the UK Borders Act 2007 and the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009. The National Identity Register was officially destroyed on 10 February 2011 when the final 500 hard drives containing the register were shredded.

India

NATGRID: India is setting up a national intelligence grid called NATGRID, which will become operational in 2013. NATGRID would allow access to each individual's data ranging from land records, Internet logs, air and rail PNR, phone records, gun records, driving license, property records, insurance, and income tax records in real time and with no oversight. With a UID from the Unique Identification Authority of India being given to every Indian from February 2011, the government would be able track people in real time. A national population registry of all citizens will be established by the 2011 census, during which fingerprints and iris scans would be taken along with GPS records of each household. Access to the combined data will be given to 11 agencies, including the Research and Analysis Wing, the Intelligence Bureau, the Enforcement Directorate, the National Investigation Agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence and the Narcotics Control Bureau.

Interpol

• Interpol's DNA database profiles, shared by 49 countries.
• Interpol fingerprint database, a database containing more than 160,000 fingerprint records submitted by its member countries. These fingerprints are collected from crime scenes, and from known and suspected criminals.

Russia

• SORM and SORM-2, technical systems from 1996 and 1998 that allow searching and surveillance of telephone and Internet communications.

Pakistan

• NADRA, The National Database & Registration Authority (NADRA) was established on 10 March 2000. Nadra is also responsible to issuing the computerized national identity cards and Passports to the citizens of Pakistan.

United States

• National ID card: The United States does not have a national ID card, in the sense that there is no federal agency with nationwide jurisdiction that directly issues such cards to all American citizens for mandatory regular use.
• Passport: The only national photo identity documents are the passport and passport card, which are issued to U.S. nationals only upon voluntary application.
• Social Security number: The vast majority of, but not all, Americans have a Social Security number because it is required for many purposes including employment, federal child tax deductions, and financial transactions. Social security numbers have become a de facto standard for uniquely identifying people in government and private databases. The Numerical Identification System (Numident) is the Social Security Administration's computer database file of an abstract of the information contained in an application for a Social Security number (Form SS-5). It contains the name of the applicant, place and date of birth, and other information. The Numident file contains all Social Security numbers since they first were issued in 1936.
• Social Security Death Index: a database of death records created from the U.S. Social Security Administration's Death Master File Extract. Most persons who have died since 1936 who had a Social Security Number and whose death has been reported to the Social Security Administration are listed in this index. The database includes given name and surname, and since the 1990s, middle initial; date of birth; month and year of death, or full date of death for accounts active in 2000 or later; social security number, state or territory where the social security number was issued; and zip code of the last place of residence while the person was alive. The index is frequently updated; the version of June 22, 2011 contained 89,835,920 records.^{[needs update]}
• Driver's licenses: these are issued by state departments of motor vehicles and registries of motor vehicles, and are the most common form of identification in the United States; the issuing agencies maintain databases of drivers, including photographs and addresses. States also issue voluntary identification cards to non-drivers, who are then also included in the motor vehicle department or registry of motor vehicle databases. Although most American adults carry their driver's license at all times when they are outside their homes, there is no legal requirement that they must be carrying their license when not operating a vehicle. In 2005, the U.S. Congress passed the REAL ID Act, which gives the Department of Homeland Security the power to regulate the design and content of all state driver's licenses, and to require that all of the underlying state databases be linked into a single national database.
• Mail Isolation Control and Tracking: Under the Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program, the U.S. Postal Service photographs the exterior of every piece of paper mail that is processed in the United States — about 160 billion pieces in 2012. The Postmaster General stated that the system is primarily used for mail sorting, but the images are available for possible use by law enforcement agencies. There is no centralized database containing all of the images, instead each of the more than 200 mail processing centers around the country keeps the images of the mail it scans. The images are retained for a week to 30 days and then destroyed. The program was created in 2001 following the anthrax attacks that killed five people.
• Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS): a national automated fingerprint identification and criminal history system maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System provides automated fingerprint search capabilities, latent searching capability, electronic image storage, and electronic exchange of fingerprints and responses. IAFIS is the largest biometric database in the world, housing the fingerprints and criminal histories of 70 million subjects in the criminal master file, 31 million civil prints and fingerprints from 73,000 known and suspected terrorists processed by the U.S. or by international law enforcement agencies. Fingerprints are voluntarily submitted to the FBI by local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies. These agencies acquire the fingerprints through criminal arrests or from non-criminal sources, such as employment background checks and the US-VISIT program. The FBI has announced plans to replace IAFIS with a Next Generation Identification system.
• Combined DNA Index System (CODIS): a tiered set of databases at the local, state, and national levels. The tiered architecture allows crime laboratories to control their own data—each laboratory decides which profiles it will share with the rest of the country. State law governs which specific crimes are eligible for CODIS. A record in the CODIS database, known as a CODIS DNA profile, consists of an individual's DNA profile, together with the sample's identifier and an identifier of the laboratory responsible for the profile. CODIS does not contain any personal identity information, such as names, dates of birth, or social security numbers. CODIS consists of the Convicted Offender Index (profiles of individuals convicted of crimes), the Forensic Index (profiles developed from biological material found at crime-scenes), the Arrestee Index, the Missing or Unidentified Persons Index, and the Missing Persons Reference Index. As of 2006, approximately 180 laboratories in all 50 states participate in CODIS. At the national level, the National DNA Index System, is operated by the FBI. As of August 2013 the National DNA System contained over 10,535,300 offender profiles, 1,613,100 arrestee profiles, and 509,900 forensic profiles and has produced over 219,700 hits, assisting in more than 210,700 investigations.^{[needs update]} The National Institute of Justice's International Center promotes information sharing with other similar Institutes worldwide.
• Investigative Data Warehouse: a searchable database containing intelligence and investigative data to support the FBI's counter-terrorism, counter-intelligence, and law enforcement missions. The Investigative Data Warehouse was created in 2004 to centralize multiple federal and state databases, including criminal records from various law enforcement agencies, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), and public records databases. According to the FBI's website, as of 22 August 2007, the database contained 700 million records from 53 databases and was accessible by 13,000 individuals around the world. The FBI was the subject of a 2006 lawsuit brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) because of a lack of public notice describing their Investigative Data Warehouse and the criteria for including personal information, as required by the Privacy Act of 1974.
• Project MINARET watch lists: Between 1967 and 1973, under Project MINARET, the National Security Agency (NSA) searched intercepted overseas telephone calls and cable traffic for the names of individuals and organizations on watch lists predesignated by government law enforcement and intelligence organizations. When a match was found, the intercepted communication was passed to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Secret Service, Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD), the Department of Defense, and the White House. There was no judicial oversight and the project obtained no warrants for the interceptions. Over 5,925 foreigners and 1,690 organizations and U.S. citizens were included on the watch lists and over 3,900 reports were issued on watch-listed Americans.
• NSA call database: Code named MAINWAY, the database, maintained by the National Security Agency (NSA), contains call detail information, but not the contents, for hundreds of billions of telephone calls made through the four largest telephone carriers in the United States: AT&T, SBC, BellSouth (all three now called AT&T), and Verizon. Launched early in 2001, the existence of the database was revealed in 2006. It is estimated that the database contains over 1.9 trillion call-detail records.
• TALON: a database created by the United States Air Force following the September 11, 2001 attacks to collect and evaluate information about possible threats to U.S. service members and civilian workers in the U.S. and at overseas military installations. Among other information TALON included lists of anti-war groups and people who had attended anti-war rallies. The database was criticized for gathering information on peace and other political activists who posed no credible threat, but who had been included in the database due to their political views. In August 2007, the US Department of Defense announced that Guardian, a database organized by the FBI, would take over data collection and reporting which was previously handled by the TALON database system.
• Homeless Management Information Systems: a class of database applications developed in the late 1990s that are used to confidentially aggregate data on homeless populations. Homeless Management Information Systems are typically web-based software applications used by assistance providers to record and store client-level information on the characteristics and service needs of homeless persons, coordinate care, manage operations, and better serve their clients.
• Case Management / Electronic Case Files: the distributed case management and electronic court filing system used by most United States Federal Courts. PACER, an acronym for Public Access to Court Electronic Records, is an interface to the same system for public use.
• Terrorist Screening Database – FBI's central terrorist watchlist
• No Fly List – US federal government list of individuals banned from US commercial flights
• Main Core – Alleged American government database
• Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval – Securities and Exchange Commission database
• Automated Trusted Information Exchange

See also

• Biometrics
• Identity document
• List of government surveillance projects
• Mass surveillance
• National DNA database
• Surveillance

References