THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO

Full List Of NHS Prescriptions To Be Axed

A number of medical treatments which are currently prescribed by the NHS are set to be axed and an NHS governing body will consult on proposals to slash 17 products from a menu of medication which should be routinely prescribed by GPs, including medications for head lice, sunburn and common colds.

The move comes as health bosses said the conditions could improve on their own with time or could be treated with shop-bought medication and the plan has been put forward by NHS Liverpool’s governing body which has caused discord among councillors in Liverpool, who insist that it displays instability in the health service with some branding the move as sickening.

And members of the council’s health and adult social care select committee passed an emergency motion opposing the move, amid concerns that the elimination of these products will leave the most disadvantaged people struggling to treat specific conditions.

The 17 conditions that risk being cut all focus on a longer NHS England list of conditions which it stated local health bosses could contemplate withdrawing from GP prescription lists.

The conditions that prescriptions face being cut for include:

Acute Sore Throat
Coughs and colds and nasal congestion
Cradle Cap (except were causing distress or not improving)
Dandruff
Head Lice
Infant Colic
Infrequent Constipation
Mild Cystitis
Mild Dry Skin/Sunburn
Minor burns and scalds
Mouth ulcers
Prevention of dental caries
Probiotics
Sun Protection (except ACBS approved indication of photodermatoses)
Vitamins and minerals (except a medically diagnosed deficiency,
Osteoporosis and malnutrition
Warts and Verrucae

This country already has a high level of deprivation and these changes could leave people having to make a choice between head lice lotion and food and this report seeks to privatise certain secondary health problems and conditions such as head lice will only be treated by people who can afford to do so and the most disadvantaged will be left to suffer and this is totally unacceptable.

Although it has further been emphasised that GPs will still have the option to give prescriptions if circumstances call for it but Dr Fiona Lemmens NHS Liverpool CCG chair, said that they have to make sure limited resources are used effectively and that they really want local people to tell them what they think of their proposed reforms first.

And if there are any other circumstances than the ones they’ve already outlined, where restricting prescriptions for those items might harm or disadvantage people, they want to learn about it and that they’ll be going out into various communities over the coming weeks to help make sure they gather viewpoints from people right across the city.

But councillor Angela Coleman said she felt the departure of the medicines was one of a number of incremental cuts to the health service in the city that could have permanent damage because it will directly affect the health choices of the very poorest in our society if they have to pay for prescriptions that were previously free on prescription and also because good health care is a fundamental requirement, regardless of ability to pay.

Perhaps if they made sure they collected money from those who arrive without insurance it would be better, after all, if we go to another country we have to have insurance and it should annoy people to know that if you have to take Declafenic NSAID it costs around £8 for 28 tablets on prescription, yet you can purchase it over the counter at any pharmacy in Spain, 40 tablets for €1.60, so someone on this side of the fence is making an outright profit.

The point is it should be about safety and not about the money because some of these medications have extremely hazardous side effects, and all medications should be on prescription only.

Okay, you can now only go into a shop and buy two packets of paracetamol which is a pain in the backside for some people and this was apparently done for safety precautions, but honestly, if someone actually wanted to take their own life they would go round every shop that sold paracetamol getting two packets at a time until they acquired enough to do the job properly, so actually it’s not about safety it’s about the government not wanting to fork out money for it.

And if you can get these prescriptions in the pound shop, such as cough mixture, head lice lotions et cetera why are prescriptions about £9 on the NHS, the NHS must be getting robbed blind by the medical companies or supposedly their representatives are on the fiddle and it won’t be long before there’s 0 per cent medical credit for major medications.

Maybe the government should focus on retrieving the money from prudent health tourists who it estimated costs the NHS between £20 million and £100 million a year. We have limited resources and if we quit treating the rest of the world we might have more for ourselves.

They chat about saving money by stopping specific prescriptions, but they’re happy to hand out patches and remedies to stop people from smoking, why not just prevent people from smoking by taking tobacco off the racks so that people can’t smoke anymore, but they wouldn’t do that because it brings them in too much revenue.

MPs Shout ‘Sit Up’

Jacob Rees-Mogg was branded the “physical embodiment of arrogance, entitlement and disrespect” after he assumed his typical laid back approach to sitting during a significant parliamentary debate on Brexit as the Conservative leader of the House of Commons lent back on the Commons benches as he listened to the opposition MPs argue that a no-deal Brexit should be blocked.

And talking in the Commons, Green MP Caroline Lucas attacked Jacob Rees-Mogg of displaying a contemptuous attitude towards other MPs and as other MPs yelled “sit up” at the Brexiteer cabinet minister, while another MP shouted, “get him a chaise lounge”.

But then he is a disgustingly arrogant man and shouldn’t the speaker of the House of Commons have pulled him up over his arrogance?

Of course, Jacob Rees-Mogg is no newcomer to lying and he does seem to be from another age but clearly, he must know about the discovery of the camera or is he that superior that he just doesn’t care?

He also looked like he was having trouble keeping his eyes open, poor thing, having to work late on his wages, imagine if he had to do some real work but then I suppose, now that his fortune is safely abroad, in a tax haven, he doesn’t really give a monkey’s about the country but then he never did give a monkey’s about this country because it’s all about him and his indulgence.

He is simply the physical manifestation of self-importance, entitlement, rudeness and disdain for our parliament and he is an utterly disgusting example of Parliamentary pond life, but then all parliamentary personages who are already multi-millionaires will do quite nicely if we do crash with a no-deal.

Of course, manners maketh the man, not a pin-striped wearing monkey. Oh, the poor worn-out lamb, it must be really difficult earning all that money a year plus expenses and anyone in a real job acting like this would have soon been down the jobcentre.

The Leader of the House was definitely displaying his state of art leadership qualities, but what he was really saying was “I can run or wreck the country lying down”, but then we should feel a little sorry for him, he can’t sit up, he’s got no backbone!

Flats With Just One Window

Two illegal flats in Westcliff are to be torn down after they were found to provide renters with only one window.

The flats, in Hamlet Court Road, were found by Southend Council during a separate inquiry into a balcony which was situated on the first floor of an authorised block of flats.

The four-storey block, which comprises 12 flats and two shops, was supposed to accommodate 14 parking spaces, including four within the ground floor of the building but rather than retain the four spaces on the ground floor, the landlord chose to transform them into two flats without getting planning approval.

And due to the space being designed for parking, each flat only had a single window.

In 1999 planning permission was given for a former warehouse and shops to be transformed into 12 flats and as a condition, the space at the bottom was supposed to have been for four parking spaces but it was found that the two flats had been built at some point in the recent past and that these flats both breached the planning conditions which required them to be for parking only.

Both flats were found to be substandard in size, they faced directly onto a shared parking area and they had no facility space and it was collectively agreed that enforcement action should be taken against the flats, as well as the illegal balcony, which meant that the landlord had just four months to remove them.

Clearly, the properties were not fit for habitation and the property with only one window did not meet building laws and was not standard for anyone to live in and this is why the council intends to start a landlord licencing scheme, which could see private landlords in designated areas paying £750 for a licence every five years.

Under the terms the licence, landlords would be expected to follow council regulations or face fines of up to £30,000 and banning orders stopping them from letting properties.

However, after taking down the flats, the developer should be barred from any additional developments in Southend and perhaps the slippery landlord should be taken to court so that the money can be recovered from all the rent that the tenants paid out for obtaining money under false pretences, but then I wonder who was renting them, and how many people were sleeping under one roof?

Councillor Who Has Lived In The UK For 19 Years

A councillor who has lived in the United Kingdom for 19 years and who is married to a British man and has two British children has been refused “settled status” by the Home Office.

Maggie Filipova-Rivers alleges she was informed that she had not produced papers from the last five years that explained why she should be able to stay in the United Kingdom after Brexit and a Home Office spokesperson said that Ms Filipova-Rivers couldn’t be refused settled status because she’d not yet made an application.

EU citizens, along with those from other countries, can apply as part of the EU Settlement Scheme to remain living in the United Kingdom following June 30, 2021 but the Liberal Democrat, who was elected in May, said she was annoyed about the way EU nationals were being handled but was positive that her case would be sorted eventually and the South Oxfordshire district councillor claims she has so far been able to get pre-settled status, which gives her fewer rights than settled status.

Originally from Bulgaria, she said she’s concerned about how other EU citizens currently living in the United Kingdom will prosper and that the most significant worry for her is that there is a tremendous threat for people who are economically inactive or those who have studied for a long time because there were a lot of nationals who came to the United Kingdom as students.

The Home Office asks applicants to produce a history of their past work, but it appears that those who had taken time out of work apparently are at a disadvantage to those who had not and that is something that the Goring councillor worries could put mothers who might have taken maternity leave, for instance, at a disadvantage.

Settled status can work if you came to the United Kingdom five years ago and worked for an employer and they paid tax on your behalf but numerous people will not be in that position because if you think about the skill spectrum, and the many zero-hour contracts or the construction sector, or those that might be casually employed, they won’t have the documentation or work history to provide.

This lady isn’t concerned about herself, but she is furious and she understands the implications. She can obtain legal help, but it comes at a price and she will be most likely absolutely fine and it’s a journey that she’s on with other EU nationals.

The councillor, who is currently South Oxfordshire District Council’s cabinet member for community services, came in the United Kingdom to take her A-Levels, before studying at Newcastle University but she’s worried that EU Citizens will face difficulties doing everyday activities, such as getting work, opening a bank account or renting a home if they don’t get settled status in the future and the freedom of movement for EU residents will end on October 31, the proposed date for Brexit.

However, that date is now uncertain.

But the answer is simple, present the right paperwork and EU nationals will be able to stay, and if they can’t provide it then there’ll be offered pre-settled status rather than being denied and the fact that you have a National Insurance number can easily determine how long you’ve worked in the United Kingdom but then Brexit started 3 years ago so why are people waiting till the last moment to apply?

On the other hand, it’s not fair that people who have lived in the United Kingdom most of their lives have their lives turned upside down for the sake of a piece of paper, when a National Insurance number would suffice.

However, this woman is scaremongering that mothers will not have evidence of earnings, but mothers who have a National Insurance number which is automatically credited to Child Benefit once claimed will have that proof but this lady just didn’t provide the right paperwork and as a councillor, she should have known what paperwork to provide.

Parliament to forcibly evict Westminster Rough Sleepers

Homeless people are to be forcibly ousted from the Westminster underpass, which leads to Parliament, by installing rolldown shutters blocking the shelter off.

In December 2018, rough sleeper Gyula Remes was found dead in the underpass. The underpass is part of the Parliamentary estate.

One of the rough sleepers, Tim, a 58-year-old who became homeless nearly a year ago following the breakdown of a relationship, has named himself the ‘Earl of Westminster’ and has penned a blog about the removal of his group.

They were a good community sleeping in the tunnel, there was no mess, no drinking, no drugs and no unruly conduct, but now the group has been split up and they have nowhere to sleep and they’re condemned to stop being rough sleepers and instead have become rough walkers.

Laura Hughes, a friend of Tim’s, checks up on his progress regularly and gives him support said that this was a human rights infringement and that it was part of the antagonistic environment towards homeless people and it’s social cleansing.

Rough sleeping in the London borough of Westminster grew by 16 per cent between April 2018 and March 2019 and throughout that time outreach workers reported 2,512 people sleeping rough compared with 2,165 the preceding year.

In June, Westminster council boarded up an area outside McDonald’s in Victoria Street to keep rough sleepers away, and the number of homeless people dying on the streets had increased by 24 per cent in the last five years but official figures have revealed that approximately 600 homeless people have died in England and Wales last year, although the real total is likely to be much higher.

And the Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures reveal that there were 482 deaths amongst displaced people in 2013, growing to 597 in 2017, so, overall, an estimated 2,627 homeless people have died in that five-year span, and it’s sickening how we as a nation have allowed so many of our citizens to be forced to live on the streets.

So, why are we housing so many people from around the globe, yet allowing our own to live on the streets? We should be looking after our own first, but the liberal far left dictators call it racist, which seems to be their favourite catchphrase.

Meanwhile, our councils and government arrogantly stated that they were giving two Syrian families a house each, furniture, food, access to the NHS, school places, all free free free, while our own people have to sleep rough on the streets.

But then I guess people are just people and all deserve a roof over their heads and at least the very basics in our moneyed society and should race and nationality even come into it? And why are our own being treated so badly?

Sadly, it’s hard and there are people out there that might have given a few quid to someone who looks like they’re genuine. The dilemma is there are thousands of good players out there making £60 an hour in some places and then after a hard day of pretending they walk a couple of streets to get into their brand-new car and bog off to their nice house.

The thing is there are genuine homeless people out there who we would definitely give a few quid to, but in this world of dishonesty and deception, most of us have given up totally, but then it’s also really disturbing to learn of the lack of human kindness and understanding demonstrated by the “As long as I’m okay jack”.

Boris Johnson Branded Tin Pot Dictator

Boris Johnson has been branded a tinpot dictator over a promise to break the law rather than ask for an extension if Britain can’t agree on a deal to leave the EU and Boris Johnson stated that he would sooner die in a ditch than go cap in hand to Brussels, despite MPs passing a law demanding he do it if a no deal has been agreed by September 19.

But Shadow attorney general and Labour peer Baroness Chakrabarti branded the Government’s position extraordinary and said the PM was acting like every tinpot dictator on the planet if he thought he could oppose the law, and they appear to be in a very dangerous constitutional position.

And Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell stated: “We don’t believe that we can pin him down and I don’t trust him an inch, and I don’t think anyone does”.

It appears that we’ve got a Prime Minister who’s stated that he will not abide by the law, and it seems that we’re in a situation where no one can trust him, and it was a calamitous week for Boris Johnson in which he lost his majority, his first four Commons votes, his bid for a general election and the support of his brother and then senior Cabinet Minister Amber Rudd who dramatically resigned.

And then Boris Johnson suffered another embarrassing Commons setback as MPs again refused his request for a general election and the likelihood of yet more Tory civil war with more resignations from concerned Tory MPs who feared that Boris has no plans for a fresh Brexit agreement.

Baroness Chakrabarti said that she believed the situation was irresponsible and elitist with the view that there’s one law for Boris Johnson and his buddies and another law for everyone else and that it was appalling.

But then every tinpot dictator on the planet throughout antiquity has used the pretext of having the people on their side to breach the law to shut down Parliament and all the rest of it, and it’s utterly extraordinary and it’s really un-British, as was the removal of the 21 MPs.

The legislation is crystal clear, if Boris Johnson doesn’t have a deal in the next few weeks, then he should ask for an extension, or ask to stay in the European Union, and of course, the Prime Minister will try to agree on a new deal with Brussels at the summit on October 17 but should he fail he will then reportedly decline to comply with the so-called Benn Act passed by Parliament.

Nevertheless, Boris Johnson has repeatedly pledged to break the law in a move which Downing Street thinks would ensure a prompt judicial review in the Supreme Court with the future of Brexit which could be put in the hands of judges just days before the October 31 deadline, and the former Director of Public Prosecutions Lord MacDonald stated that it could see the Prime Minister arrested and imprisoned, and if he goes to prison will his cabinet and advisers be arrested for aiding and abetting?

What we should really do is have an election so that the people of this country can decide. No more petitions, no more courts, no more games in Parliament because it’s the only way to stop this nonsense from both sides.

And we all know that the only reason Boris Johnson has brought forward the shutting down of Parliament is that he doesn’t want any more humiliating disappointments and we shouldn’t believe what Boris Johnson has to say, he’s a known lier and even his own brother saw through him.

It’s all foolishness, and the referendum was sold on the basis of a stroll in the park, but it’s far from a stroll in the park. It was deemed to be the most straightforward deal in history and it has been far from it. The government and the people can’t have their cake and eat it, we’re either in or out, and the Government needs to make its mind up.

Theresa May said that a no-deal was better than a bad deal, I say, better the devil you do know than the devil you don’t!

Boris Johnson actually has no idea what he’s doing, and he’s wasting time and energy and our money planning on a no-deal when all that time, energy and money should be going on more essential things, and a no-deal means nothing, zilch, nada, walking away empty-handed, which of course is a recipe for disaster.

Boris Johnson was the man who penned two speeches, one to leave and one to remain, evidently, he couldn’t make his mind up or was he merely hedging his bets? And everyone said he was a clown, no clown there, and he clearly doesn’t need his head testing, he knows precisely what he’s doing.

But if you look at the entire picture, it looks pretty much like Sieg Heil to me with Boris Johnson and his fascist friends who are driving the Brexit sheep into a glorious fifth Reich. Nevermind parliamentary democracy, never mind the law, simply get rid of anything or anyone who opposes and then government tramples over the vote in parliament, and this dictator would do anything, even disregard the law to get his own way.

And so we’re now at a point where the only people who are certified normal are those who are agreeing with Leave and a no-deal and then people start using slanderous names against each other. So, there you go ladies and gentlemen and gender neutralists and Boris Johnson the bonehead is showing his real feelings with his once again inebriated brain, the only thing that’s missing is the occasional belch that comes out of his muzzle.

The bottom line is we can call Boris Johnson all the names under the sun but it won’t change anything and the country is a mess because of the Tories but I can’t see anything different happening under Jeremy Corbyn but one thing that has become glaringly apparent is that the political system in the United Kingdom is now out of touch with the current times and it’s beginning to disintegrate and self destruct before our very eyes.

And you can’t expect such an antiquated system to operate in the 21st century and the more you look into how parliament operates shows us that it has no place in the modern world and the Brexit shambles has only highlighted this for everyone to see and it’s now time to have a significant overhaul.

Boris Johnson wants it done and dusted, but even if he does get his way it won’t be over by a long chalk and the only way this country will come to its senses is when the effect of a no-deal kicks in and Jeremy Corbyn now realises that if he won an election he would be left holding that baby.

At the end of the day, Boris Johnson vowed to settle a deal when he became Prime Minister, but so far all he’s done is cause more of a mess but screaming ridiculous silly insults and playground namecalling at him will not make any difference, although people are entitled to a debate or they can simply observe from the sidelines while sucking their thumb.

At the end of the day, Parliament is on the verge of collapse and there should be a comprehensive overhaul of our Parliamentary system with MPs having their wings clipped and if we want things to be abolished, then MPs should be given no rights like people are being given no rights from the Government because this country should never be run on dictatorship!

Poo Found On Every McDonald’s Touchscreen Tested

Specimens were taken from the new machines that have been rolled out at restaurants across the country and every one of them had coliforms, and it was shocking on how much stomach and faecal bacteria there was on the touchscreen machines because this is the cause of the kind of infections people get and end up in the hospital with.

For example, Enterococcus Faecalis is part of the flora of gastrointestinal tracts of healthy humans and other mammals, and it’s notorious in hospitals for causing hospital-acquired infections.

Unsuspecting customers choose their food on the touchscreens then go to the server to pick up their burgers more often than not without cleaning their hands, and a screen at one branch was found to have staphylococcus, a bacteria that can cause blood poisoning and toxic shock syndrome.

And seeing Staphylococcus on the machines is disturbing because it’s so infectious. It starts around people’s noses, and if they touch their nose with their fingers, they can then transfer it to the touchscreen for someone else to get it, and if they have an open cut which it gets into, then it can be fatal.

And there’s a lot of worries at the moment that Stapycoccus is becoming resistant to antibiotics, and it’s still very dangerous in areas like Africa where it can cause toxic shock.

Metro.co.uk’s study with the university’s school of human sciences involved swabs taken from eight McDonald’s establishments. Six in London and two in Birmingham. Listeria bacteria was discovered in Oxford Street and Holloway Road branches.

It can cause Listeriosis which can lead to miscarriages and stillbirths in pregnant women, and Listeria was another rare bacterium that was discovered on the touchscreen machines and this can be extremely infectious and a problem for those with a weak immune system, and three-quarters of the screens swabbed showed evidence of the bacteria Proteus.

Proteus can be found in human and animal faeces. It’s also widely distributed in soil.

It can cause urinary tract infections and is also one of the hospital-acquired infections where it may responsible for septicaemia.

Klebsiella is also from the gut and the mouth, and they’re associated with urinary tract infections, septicemia and diarrhoea, and some species can infect the respiratory tract resulting in pneumonia, and as touchscreen technology is being used more and more in our daily lives, these results confirm that people should not consume their food straight after touching them, they’re unsanitary and can spread infection.

Someone can be extremely cautious about their own cleanliness throughout the day but it could all be destroyed by using a touchscreen machine just once and even though McDonald’s do wash their screens with disinfectant, it might not have been strong enough and this bacteria could have been on the touchscreen machine for days on end.

Of course, people should wash their hands before they eat, and I dread to think of what bacteria there is on money, and it’s not only down to McDonald’s cleaning their screens, it’s people who need to clean their hands as well.

But then they’ve done tests like these on all kinds of public centres, handrails in particular, and there’s poop all over the place, it’s not only McDonald’s.

But then what should we do, should we wash our hands before touching, wash after touching, wash before eating, wash our hands all day until they bleed. We could always wrap ourselves in cling film and never touch things.

And if you did a hit-swab test on the streets from people’s hands and smart screens of the public, you’d seemingly discover the same, but this shouldn’t come as any surprise. Try any surface in the public, trams, trains, buses, not neglecting surfaces in homes, work surfaces, phone screens and handles, it’s everywhere, but then shit happens!

Tories Will Stand Against Biased Commons Speaker John Bercow

Enraged Tories will crush convention and stand a candidate against Commons Speaker John Bercow at the next general election, Andrea Leadsom has announced, as the business Secretary unveiled the move, as she stepped up her dispute with John Bercow, accusing him of infringing the rules of Parliament by enabling MPs to take charge of Commons business.

And in a stinging assault, Andrea Leadsom said John Bercow had failed in his position and had allowed a flagrant abuse of the parliamentary rules, and before becoming Speaker ten years ago, John Bercow was the Tory MP for Buckingham with a majority of more than 18,000, so the move is almost guaranteed to lead to him losing his seat and the Election of a new Speaker and sources close to John Bercow have indicated that he could stand down at the next election rather than risk a Tory challenger.

Andrea Leadsom said the Conservative Party would field a candidate in John Bercow’s constituency of Buckingham at the next election as a result, but of course, the Speaker of the Commons is an MP who stands in general elections but is normally unhampered by the major political parties, but Andrea Leadsom wants an unbiased preacher, and her comments came days after MPs upheld a proposal to take charge of the Commons timetable to pass law to prevent a no-deal Brexit.

Andrea Leadsom said the Speaker’s role was supposed to be politically impartial, and that John Bercow was supposed to be an independent arbiter of the proceedings, who was in place to protect the constitution and manage the performance of the House, but sadly she thought that the current speaker had failed them.

Andrea Leadsom said that by allowing MPs to use Standing Order Number 24 which is a method used to trigger emergency debates as a means of taking over Parliament’s timetable, John Bercow had not only bent the rules, he had actually broken them, and that it was a blatant violation of the process, and that the standing order No 24 that the Opposition proposed wasn’t appropriate for a Motion, and that it was designed to ram through legislation for purely political reasons.

And she said that the use of the standing order in such a way would lead to the creation of bad laws and a total disregard to the will of the people, but then Andrea Leadsom has clashed with John Bercow in the past, and in May of last year the Speaker was alleged to have labelled Andrea Leadsom as a stupid woman, as well as calling her useless, and evidently there was a profanity included in that.

But in March, John Bercow scolded Andrea Leadsom for using her mobile phone during Commons business. Well, John, if you don’t want her to use her phone, ban all mobile phones when entering… really, a bit of respect all round you guys, children are better behaved!

But it’s way more fun watching the parties destroying themselves.

At the end of the day, John Bercow has one job to do, enforce the rules of the House and stay unbiased while he’s doing it, how difficult can it be? But then I do have to give him some credit… he treats MPs like children, but only because they behave like them.

Ooorrrddddeeeeerr, ordeeeeerrrrrr! I bet that makes him feel like a real grown-up!

But then parliament comes across as house clowns, with John Bercow being the biggest of them all, and these people are a disgrace to every hard-working person in the country, and it makes me question how anyone can have any reverence for them.

But like all Utopian insurgents they’ll end up attacking each other, and they’re doomed by history to fail, and it’s not a matter of if, only of when, and I actually would like to have a ringside seat.

Sadly, our government will do anything to turn this country into a hard right one-party state because they’re the most nefarious collection of slimeballs to have run this country in the past 200 years going all the way back to Lord Liverpool and the Tory Repression years, when we had the Peterloo Massacre, and it’s easy to see how Hitler stiffened his grip on power in Nazi Germany during 1933 to 1934, and we’re seeing a comparable attempt at such a power grab in this radical right-wing coup that’s unfolding here.

Of course, people aren’t bothered, just so long as they can go down the pub and have a few brews, then, of course, everything is okay, yet the Tories have spent 10 years picking on the most disadvantaged in society, even those near to death, and in some instances, actually dead, but as soon as it’s the governments own, or indeed 21 of their own, they throw in the victim card, stamp their feet and yell, “It’s not fair”.

Is Your Data Really Data Protected?

When companies or businesses use your data, it uses your personal information, but these companies must follow the dictates on data protection. This pertains to data kept on staff, customers and account holders, for instance when staff are hired, staff documents are executed, and when businesses sell their goods or services, this further includes the use of CCTV.

This could also include keeping customer’ addresses on file, recording personnel working hours, and giving delivery data to a delivery company. This data has to be kept safe, accurate and up to date, and not only that, when information is obtained, especially if it’s personal data, that company or business has to tell a person who that company is and how they’ll use that data, including if it’s being distributed to other parties.

Companies and businesses must tell the person or customer that they have the freedom to see any data that the company holds about them, and correct it if it’s wrong. They further have to right to have their data erased and/or request that their information is not used for specific objectives.

Data on staff that’s accumulated must be protected and safe, with paper documents secured in filing cabinets or set passwords for computer records, and this data should only be kept as long as it’s needed and then disposed of securely after, by shredding, for instance.

Companies must be able to justify monitoring their workers at work because all workers have rights at work and are entitled to be treated justly.

Businesses can’t monitor workers without their knowledge except if it’s to do with part of a particular investigation, and then it must end when the investigation is over and if a company uses CCTV, they must tell people they’re being recorded.

This is normally done by displaying signs, which must be distinctly visible and clear and anyone can request to see images that have been recorded of them, and they must be presented inside 40 days, although you can be charged up to £10.

But then there are the Apps on your phone so that people know where you were last night, and dozens of companies use smartphone location to help advertisers and even hedge funds. They say it’s anonymous, but…

There are millions of dots on the map which track highways, side street and bike trails, each one following the trail of an anonymous cellphone user.

One path tracks someone from a home outside of Neward to a nearby Planned Parenthood, remaining there for more than an hour, another represents somebody who travels with the mayor of New York throughout the day and returns to Long Island in the evening.

Yet another leaves a house in upstate New York at 7 am and travels to a middle school 14 miles away, staying until late afternoon each school day. Only one person makes the journey, a maths teacher and her smartphone goes with her.

The app on her device gathers her location information, which is then sold without her knowledge, and it’s recorded her location as frequently as every two seconds, and according to a database more than a million phones in the New York area collect location data, and even though the identities are not exposed in these records it was easy to connect them to that dot.

The app tracked her as she went to a Weight Watchers meeting and to her dermatologist’s office for a minor procedure. It followed her hiking with her canine and staying at her ex-boyfriend’s home, which is really disturbing.

Because it’s the thought of somebody obtaining those intimate details that you don’t want people to know, and even though numerous consumers know that apps like these can track people’s movements, smartphones have become ubiquitous and technology more accurate, and this is an enterprise that’s snooping on people’s everyday habits and is growing to be more intrusive.

And then we have the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal which was a major political disgrace in early 2018 when it was reported that Cambridge Analytica had collected the personal data of millions of people’s Facebook profiles without their permission and used it for political advertising purposes.

It’s been described as a watershed moment in the public perception of personal data and accelerated a huge decline in Facebook’s stock price and has called for tighter control of tech companies’ use of personal data.

The illegal harvesting of personal data by Cambridge Analytica was first reported in December 2015 by Harry Davies, a journalist for The Guardian, and he reported that Cambridge Analytica was working for the United States Senator Ted Cruz using data collected from millions of people’s Facebook accounts without their permission.

Of course, Facebook declined to comment on the story other than to say it was investigating, but the scandal ultimately exploded in March 2018 with the appearance of a whistle-blower, an ex-Cambridge Analytica employee Christopher Wylie.

More than $100 billion was knocked off Facebook’s market capitalisation in days and politicians in the US and the United Kingdom demanded explanations from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and the scandal ultimately steered him to agree to testify in front of the United States Congress.

The scandal was important enough for stimulating public debate on ethical standards for social media companies, political consulting organisations, and politicians, and consumer advocates called for more comprehensive consumer protection in online media and the right to privacy as well as misinformation and propaganda.

Aleksandr Kogan, a data scientist at Cambridge University, developed an app called “This Is Your Digital Life” sometimes stylised as “thisisyourdigitallife“.

He presented the app to Cambridge Analytica, Cambridge Analytica, in turn, established an informed consent process for research in which several hundred thousand Facebook users would agree to complete a survey only for educational use.

However, Facebook’s design enabled this app not only to accumulate the personal information of people who consented to take part in the survey, but also the personal data of all the people in those user’s Facebook social network, and in this way, Cambridge Analytica managed to collect data from millions of Facebook users.

And it was announced that dataset had included data on 50 million Facebook users, and Facebook later verified that it actually had data on up to 87 million users, with 70.6 million of those people from the United States.

Within the United States, Facebook estimates that California was the most affected US state, with 6.7 million impacted users, followed by Texas, with 5.6 million, and Florida, with 4.3 million, and while Cambridge Analytica stated that it only accumulated 30 million Facebook user profiles, Facebook determined that the number was about 87 million profiles.

Facebook posted a message to those users thought to be affected, stating that the data possibly included one’s public profile, page likes, birthday and city, but some of the app users gave the app authorisation to access their News Feed, timeline, and messages.

The information was detailed enough for Cambridge Analytica to build psychographic profiles of the subjects of the data. The information further included the locations of each person, and for a given political campaign, the information was accurate enough to build a profile which suggested what kind of advertisement would be most effective to influence a particular person in a particular location for some political event.

And in December 2015, The Guardian reported that Cambridge Analytica used the data at the behest of Ted Cruz. Cambridge Analytica further assisted with President Trump’s campaigns, and on March 17, 2018, The Observer, Guardian’s sister paper published online on theguardian.com and The New York Times disclosed the story concurrently.

The Observer worked with Christopher Wylie, a former employee of Cambridge Analytica, for more than a year before bringing in The New York Times to report the story in the United States, and the New York Times reported that as of March 17, 2018, the information was still accessible online.

Some, such as Meghan McCain has drawn an equivalence between the use of data by Cambridge Analytica and Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign, which, according to Investor’s Business Daily prompted followers to download an Obama 2012 Facebook app that, when activated let the campaign collect Facebook data both on users and their friends.

PolitiFact, a fact-checking organisation had rated this as Half true in Obama’s case, and direct users knew they were giving over their data to a political campaign, whereas with Cambridge Analytica users believed they were only taking part in a personality quiz for academic purposes, and while the Obama campaign used the data to have their followers contact their most persuadable friends, Cambridge Analytica targeted users, friends and lookalikes directly with digital ads.

Political events for which politicians paid Cambridge Analytica to use data from the data breach included the following 2015 and 2016 campaign of United States politician Ted Cruz.

Facebook director Mark Zuckerberg first atoned for the situation with Cambridge Analytica on CNN, describing it an issue, a mistake and a breach of trust, and in effect, he reminded them of their Right of access to personal data.

Other Facebook officials contended against calling it a data breach, disputing those who took the personality quiz basically agreed to give away their data.

Mark Zuckerberg promised to make adjustments and changes in Facebook policy to stop similar violations, and on March 25, 2018, Mark Zuckerberg published a personal letter in numerous newspapers apologising on behalf of Facebook, and in April they decided to implement the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation in all regions of operation and not only the EU.

Amazon said that they suspended Cambridge Analytica from using their Amazon Web Services when they discovered that their service was collecting personal data, and the Italian banking company UniCredit quit promoting and marketing on Facebook.

The governments of India and Brazil demanded that Cambridge Analytica report how anyone used data from the breach in political campaigning, and numerous regional government in the United States had suits in their court systems from citizens affected by the information breach.

On April 25, 2018, Facebook released its first earnings report since the scandal was announced. Revenue has dropped since the last quarter, but this is normal as it followed the holiday season quotes, and in early July 2018, the United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner’s Office announced it intended to fine Facebook £500,000 ($663,000) over the information scandal, this being the highest penalty allowed at the time of the violation, stating that Facebook violated the law by failing to safeguard people’s data.

In March 2019, a court filing by the US Attorney General for the District of Columbia alleged that Facebook knew of Cambridge Analytica’s inappropriate data gathering practices months before they were first publicly reported in December 2015.

In July 2019, the Federal Trade Commission voted to approve fining Facebook about $5 billion to finally settle the investigation to the scandal, with a 3.2 vote.

During his testimony before Congress on April 10, 2018, Mark Zuckerberg stated it was his personal mistake that he didn’t do enough to prevent Facebook from being used for harm, but this guy isn’t a stupid guy unless he’s suddenly hidden his brains up his sleeve.

But it was his mistake, after all, he runs Facebook, and he’s accountable for what happens there.

He said in 2010 that the thing he really cares about is the mission, and making the world open, and when asked whether Facebook could earn more revenue from advertising as a result of its extraordinary growth, he said: “I guess we could”.

He further said: “We’re not like that. We make enough money” and that Facebook makes enough money and that they’re growing at the rate that they want, but in 2010, Steven Levy, who wrote the 1984 book Hackers” Heroes of the Computer Revolution wrote that Mark Zuckerberg clearly thought of himself as a hacker.

The Criticism of Facebook originates from the company’s prominence and has led to international media coverage and significant reporting of its legal problems and the outsize impact it has on the lives and health of its users and employees, as well as its influence on the way media, particularly news, is reported and shared.

Well-known issues include Internet privacy, such as its use of a widespread “like” button on third party websites tracking users, possible unlimited records of user data, automatic facial recognition software and its use in the workplace, including employer-employee account disclosure.

Not only that, the use of Facebook can have psychological consequences, including feelings of resentment, stress, and a lack of attention, as well as, social media addiction, in some cases akin to drug addiction.

Facebook’s operations have also received coverage on the company’s electricity usage, tax evasion, real-name user requirement policies, censorship policies, the handling of user data and its involvement in the United States PRISM surveillance programme have been highlighted by the media and critics.

Facebook has come under investigation for ignoring or avoiding its accountability for the content posted on its platform, including copyright and intellectual property infringement, hate speech, incitement of rape and terrorism, as well as fake news, Facebook murder, crimes and violet incidents live-streamed through its Facebook Live functionality, and there, have been some concerns expressed concerning the use of Facebook as a method of surveillance and information mining.

Two Massachusettes Institute of Technology (MIT) students were able to use an automated script to download the publicly posted information of over 70,000 Facebook profiles from four schools (MIT, NYU, and the University of Oklahoma, and Harvard University as part of a research project on Facebook privacy published on December 14, 2005.

Since then, Facebook has reinforced security protection for users, stating that they’ve built various defences to combat phishing and malware, including complex automated systems that work behind the scenes to identify and flag Facebook accounts that are likely to be compromised, based on abnormal activity like lots of messages sent in a short period of time, or messages with links that are perceived to be bad.

A second clause that brought criticism from some users allowed Facebook the right to sell users’ data to private companies, stating that they might share data with third parties, including responsible companies with which they had a relationship with.

This matter was addressed by spokesman Chris Hughes, who said, that they never provided users’ information to third party companies, nor did they intend to, and Facebook ultimately withdrew this clause from its privacy policy.

In the United Kingdom, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) had encouraged companies to allow their workers to access Facebook and other social-networking sites from work, provided they proceeded with care, but in September 2007, Facebook attracted criticism after it started allowing search engines to index profile pages, although Facebook’s privacy settings allow users to turn this off.

Concerns were further raised on the BBC’s Watchdog programme in October 2007 when Facebook was shown to be an easy way in which to collect an individual’s personal data in order to facilitate identity theft. However, there is hardly any personal data granted to non-friends because if users leave the privacy controls on their default settings, the only personal information visible to a non-friend is the user’s name, gender, profile, picture, networks and username.

But an editorial in The New York Times in February 2008 pointed out that Facebook didn’t actually provide a mechanism for users to close their accounts, and raised concerns that private user data remained indefinitely on Facebook’s servers.

As of 2013, Facebook gave users the option to deactivate or delete their accounts. Deactivating an account enables it to be restored later while deleting it removes the account permanently, although some data submitted by the account, like posting to a group or sending someone a message remained.

In 2013, Facebook acquired Onavo, a developer of mobile utility apps such as Onavo Protect VPN, which is used as part of an insights platform to calculate the use and market share of apps. This information has since been used to influence acquisitions and other business decisions concerning Facebook products.

Criticism of this practice emerged in 2018 when Facebook started to advertise the Onavo Protect VPN within its main app on iOS devices in the United States. Media outlets considered the app to effectively be spyware due to its performance, adding that the app’s listings did not readily disclaim Facebook’s ownership of the app and its data collection practices.

Facebook consequently removed the iOS version of the app, citing new iOS App Store policies preventing apps from performing analytics on the usage of other apps on a user’s device, and since 2016, Facebook has also run Project Atlas, publicly known as Facebook Research, a market research programme attracting teenagers and young adults between the ages of 13 and 35 to have data such as their app usage, web browsing history, web search history, location history, personal messages, photos, videos, emails, and Amazon order history, analysed by Facebook, and participants got up to $20 per month for engaging in the programme.

Facebook Research is administered by third-party beta testing services, including Applause, and requires users to install a Facebook root certificate on their phone, but in the wake of a January 2019 report by TechCrunch on Project Atlas it was alleged that Facebook circumvented the App Store by using an Apple enterprise programme for apps used internally by a company’s employees, Facebook denied the report but later announced its discontinuation of the programme on iOS.

On January 30, 2019, Apple briefly removed Facebook’s Enterprise Developer Programme certificates for one day, which caused all of the company’s internal iOS apps to become inoperable. Apple stated that Facebook had been using their membership to distribute a data-collecting app to consumers, which is a clear violation of their agreement with Apple, and that the certificates were removed to protect their users and their data.

US Senators Mark Warner, Richard Blumenthal, and Ed Markey separately criticised Facebook Research’s targeting of teenagers and pledged to sponsor legislation to regulate market research programmes.

Facebook had enabled users to deactivate their accounts but not actually eliminate account content from its servers, which meant that users had to clear their own accounts by manually deleting all of the content including wall posts, friends and groups.

The New York Times noted the issue and raised concerns that emails and other private user data remained indefinitely on Facebook’s servers. Facebook consequently started letting users permanently delete their accounts in 2010, and Facebook’s Privacy Policy now states that when a user deletes their account, it’s permanently deleted from Facebook.

In July 2007, Andrienne Felt, an undergraduate student at the University of Virginia, identified a cross-site scripting (XSS) hole in the Facebook Platform that could insert JavaScript into profiles. She used the hole to import custom CSS and to demonstrate how the platform could be used to infringe rules or create a worm.

Quit Facebook Day was an online event which took place on May 31, 2010, corresponding with Memorial Day, in which Facebook users asserted that they would leave the social network due to privacy concerns.

It was determined that 2 per cent of Facebook users coming from the United States would delete their accounts, however, only 33,000 approximately 0.0066 per cent of its roughly 500 million members at the time left the site.

The number one reason for users to quit Facebook was privacy concerns, 48 per cent, being followed by a general dissatisfaction with Facebook 14 per cent, negative aspects concerning Facebook friends 13 per cent, and the feeling of getting addicted to Facebook 6 per cent.

Facebook deserters were found to be more concerned about privacy, more addicted to the Internet, and more conscientious.

In August 2011, the Irish Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) began an inquiry after getting 22 complaints by europe-v-facebook.org, which was discovered by a group of Austrian students.

The DPC said in its first reactions that the Irish DPC was lawfully accountable for the privacy on Facebook for all users within the European Union and that he would review the complaints using his full legal powers if needed.

The complaints were filed in Ireland because all users who were not citizens of the United States or Canada had a contract with Facebook Ireland Ltd, located in Dublin, Ireland. Under European law, Facebook Ireland is the data controller for facebook.com, and hence, facebook.com is dictated by European data protection laws.

Facebook Ireland Ltd. was established by Facebook Inc. to evade US taxes (see Double Irish arrangement).

The group europe-v-facebook.org made access requests at Facebook Ireland and got up to 1,222 pages of data per person in 57 data categories that Facebook was holding about them, including information that was previously removed by users.

The group claimed that Facebook failed to provide some of the requested data, including likes, facial recognition data, data about third party websites that use social plugins visited by users, and information about uploaded videos, and the group alleged that Facebook held at least 84 data categories about every user.

The first 16 complaints targeted various problems, from undeleted old pokes, all the way to the question if sharing and new functions on Facebook should be opt-in or opt-out. The second wave of 6 more complaints was targeting more problems including one against the like button, and the most severe could have been a complaint that alleged that the privacy policy and the consent to the privacy policy was void under European laws.

In an interview with the Irish Independent, a spokesperson stated that the DPC would go and audit Facebook, go onto the premises and go through in grand detail every aspect of security, and the spokesperson said that it would be a really significant, comprehensive and intensive undertaking that would extend over four or five days.

And in December 2011 the DPC published its first report on Facebook. This report was not legally binding but recommended adjustments that Facebook should undertake until July 2012 where they then plan to do a review of Facebook’s progress in July 2012.

In spring 2012, Facebook had to undertake numerous modifications, for example, having an extended download tool that could enable users to utilise the European right to access to all collected data or an update of the worldwide privacy policy.

These changes were regarded as not sufficient to comply with European law by europ-v-facebook.org, and the download tool did not allow, for instance, access to all data, and the group launched our-policy.org to suggest improvement to the new policy, which they saw as a backdrop for privacy on Facebook.

Since the group managed to get more than 7,000 comments on Facebook’s pages, Facebook had to do a global vote on the proposed reforms, and such a vote would have only been binding if 30 per cent of all users would have taken part.

Facebook did not promote the vote, resulting in only 0.038 per cent support with about 87 per cent voting against Facebook’s new policy. The new privacy policy took effect on the same day.

An editorial written by USA Today in November 2011 alleged that Facebook generates records of pages visited both by its members and by non-members, relying on tracking cookies to keep track of pages visited, but at the beginning of November 2015, Facebook was ordered by the Belgian Privacy Commissioner to stop tracking non-users, quoting European laws, or they risked penalties of up to £250,000 per day.

As a result, instead of removing tracking cookies, Facebook banned non-users in Belgium from seeing any material on Facebook, including publicly posted content, unless they sign in, but Facebook reprimanded the decision, by saying that the cookies implemented better security.

In 2010, the Wall Street Journal found that several of Facebook’s top-rated apps were sending identifying data to dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies. The apps used an HTTP referer that revealed the user’s identification and sometimes their friend’s identities, but Facebook said that while knowledge of user ID did not allow access to anyone’s private data on Facebook, it did intend to introduce new technical systems that would dramatically restrict the sharing of User ID’s.

And a blog posted by a member of Facebook’s team further asserted that press reports had elaborated the implications of sharing a user ID, although still acknowledging that some of the apps were passing the ID in a way that infringed Facebook’s policies.

And in 2018, Facebook acknowledged that an app made by Global Science Research and Alexandr Kogan, related to Cambridge Analytica, was able in 2014 to collect personal data of up to 87 million Facebook users without their permission, by utilising their friendship connection to the users who sold their data via the app.

Following the revelations of the breach, several public figures, including industrialist Elon Musk and Whatsapp cofounder Brian Acton, announced that they were deleting their Facebook accounts, using the hashtag#deletefacebook.

THERE’S A SPY IN YOUR MERCEDES

Mercedes has sparked a privacy dispute by admitting it spies on motorists with tracking devices covertly placed in its vehicles, and the secret sensors, fitted to all new and used motors sold by the firm’s dealers, pinpoint the vehicle’s exact location.

The firm sold more than 170,000 new cars in Britain alone last year, but Mercedes will not say how long it’s used the sensors and maintains they’re only activated in extreme circumstances when finance customers have defaulted on their payments.

However, it does admit to sharing car owner information and vehicle location details with third-party bailiffs and recovery firms who repossess the cars and ex-cabinet minister David Davis has asked for the Government to investigate.

But this is not the first time big business has behaved like Big Brother but it’s unusual to be quite as cunning as this, and is it even legal to pass on information to other people such as bailiffs? And the government should look really closely into the validity of this procedure.

And even though Mercedes’ actions is extremely disturbing, this appears to part of the staggering growth of surveillance and this seems to another troubling development in the way companies control what should be private and personal data and this modern technology means our ability to keep personal information private is under threat like never before.

Organisations that manage personal data need to be totally upfront about what they’re doing but Mercedes seems not to have been so in this case and its clients may start to worry about what other private data the company may be collecting and passing on.

Mercedes competitors including BMW, Jaguar, Land Rover and Volkswagen have all said they don’t carry out similar tracking, and previously the Sun investigated and revealed that Amazon staff can listen to Alexa recording British couples rowing, discussing private family matters and even having sex.

Mercedes customers who buy cars through the official financial arm give their consent when signing lengthy terms and conditions, which frequently go unread and Mercedes maintained the clause about “location sensors” are in bold print just above the customer’s signature on finance contracts.

If Mercedes wants to install this privacy-surrendering tech in their vehicles, that’s fine but surely they have a responsibility to explicitly tell their clients beforehand, and not hide it away in their terms and conditions.

So, what happened to the EU data protection rules? And having them means that companies and businesses should process data in a fair and lawful manner, for a specified and legitimate purpose and only process that data necessary to fulfil its purpose – but they don’t!

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