A DNA fingerprint of every active criminal in Britain will be taken as part of government plans for a wide-ranging overhaul of the criminal justice system, the Prime Minister announced yesterday.

Mr Blair declared the justice system archaic, saying it hampered police efforts to keep up with organised crime, and announced a £107m package to expand the DNA database. By 2004, the database should hold more than three million samples - equivalent to "almost the whole criminal class of the UK", Downing Street claimed.

Considering the UK's track record recently I guess my two primary questions are.

• What level of criminal are they talking about?? Convicted (not just accused) murders and rapists, or any one who has gotten a ticket like Rudy Giuliani( NYC mayor) wants to do
• Is this going to stay at convicted criminals? or will it be expanded to the general public, maybe all new borns, like Rudy Giuliani( NYC mayor) wants to do ?

Slashdot | DNA Fingerprinting Of All UK Criminals.

CNN/fn - Amazon may share information on users. Retailing giant rethinks privacy policy, may sell client info

Slashdot | Your Rights Online: Amazon's Privacy Policy Now Allows Sale of User Info .

Technology News from Wired News - MS Releases Privacy Patch.

Microsoft released a browser add-on Friday intended to provide users with greater control over the browser-tracking cookies handed out by websites.

The company issued a beta release of what it calls privacy enhancements for Internet Explorer 5.5, the most recent release of the company's Web browser for the Windows platform.

ZDNet: News: No easy way to exterminate ''Web Bugs'. Personal firewalls and Microsoft's coming "cookie cutter" may help users squash these pests. But privacy regulation may be the ultimate answer.

New York Times - free registration required Amazon.com Revises Privacy Policy on Consumer Concern.

Amazon.com Inc., the biggest Internet retailer, said it revised its privacy policy and will be informing its 23 million customers of the changes via e-mail.

The move comes amid concern by government regulators and consumer groups about protecting the privacy of Internet users.

Amazon.com also faces several class-action lawsuits that allege its Alexa software unit secretly intercepted personal data and transmitted the information to Amazon.com and other parties. The Federal Trade Commission(FTC) is formally investigating Alexa.

The new privacy policy on the company's Web site details what personal information Amazon.com gathers, why it collects it and how it is used. The company didn't say how the new policies specifically differ from the old ones.

Since they didn't say how the policies differed from the old one, I guess its up to us to guess whether they offered additional protection or just admitted how they distribute the data collected. Unfortunately since most companies will point out the good things that they have done and try and ignore the bad, I assume that its the latter. One thing that I do have to give them points for is informing the user base about the change with an E-mail. Now if only the E-mail told us what the changes actually were. Does anyone know what the changes are?

CNET.com - News - Entertainment & Media - Updated cookie-alert software released for IE 5.5 .

Microsoft issued a software patch to the public today for its latest Internet browser that tells customers when third-party Web sites try to place "cookies" on their computers for tracking purposes.

The update for Internet Explorer 5.5 will also let people designate preferences about accepting different types of cookies, or electronic tags, which can often be helpful for delivering personalized services such as Web-based email.