🚨Extraordinary + welcome return to rationality by Vaccines Minister today:
"Mandating vaccinations is discriminatory & completely wrong. I, like @SteveBakerHW, urge businesses listening to this today not to even think about this. We've absolutely no plans for vaccine passports"
This major U-turn was confirmed during a Westminster Hall debate this evening in which an e-petition, signed by 300k+ people, urged the Government to prevent any restrictions on people who refuse to be vaccinated.
Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi said he'd previously "misspoke".
It followed Baker's strong case against implicit coercion:
"There can't possibly be ANY question of coercing people into taking the vaccine"
This return to rationality on vaccine restrictions is good for our rights, trust and public health.
Trusting and supporting people to make the right decisions to protect themselves + their communities is needed to restore public health + democracy alike. Thank you @nadhimzahawi
As always, we will be absolutely vigilant to any changes 👀
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🚨URGENT: @metpoliceuk has issued misleading and chilling statements ahead of today's demonstrations in London, denying our rights to organise and attend protests under current Coronavirus laws.
We have sent an urgent letter to the Met with @libertyhq to demand a correction. ⬇️
This is a misrepresentation of the law that fails to respect both the Coronavirus Regulations and fundamental freedoms of assembly & expression, protected by the Human Rights Act.
Protests organised with a risk assessment + safety measures can be lawful.
By denying that political gatherings can be organised and attended lawfully with safety measures, police are making inevitable protests less safe and more likely to result in prosecutions.
🚨BREAKING: A Big Brother Watch investigation has found councils using huge amounts of highly personal data + predictive analytics to create covid risk scores with private data firm Xantura - and even predict who might break self-isolation.
This extraordinary system, uncovered by our investigator @JHurfurt, includes a vast amount of data spanning “unfaithful & unsafe sex”, financial details, free school meals & dangerous pets.
It is stereotyping at its worst. We do not yet know where some of this data is sourced.
“This underlines the shift toward mass surveillance and data harvesting triggered by the pandemic. It's scandalous that councils are using experimental algorithms behind closed doors. We have a right to know how councils use our data to make decisions about our lives.” @JHurfurt
🚨NEW: A law is in force *today* requiring venues to collect our personal data, or else be fined £500.
Pubs, cafés, restaurants, even workplace canteens must refuse entry to anyone who doesn’t want to share this data.
This change is huge. It's a mass recording of our movements.
As well as pubs, restaurants + workplace canteens, this law requires
sports clubs + gyms 🏋️♀️
heritage sites 🏰
arcades 🕹️
hotels 🏨
museums 🎨
libraries 📖
barbers 💇♂️
nail bars 💅
community + youth centres 👨👩👦👦
village halls 🏡
AND many other locations to collect personal data.
Venues must display Gov-issued QR codes which link to the NHS contact tracing app when it's launched next week.
Don’t have the app? You'll be required to leave contact details, the time + date of your visit, the size of your group + the name of any staff member you interact with
STATEMENT: The public is enduring a shock and awe campaign of complex and contradictory executive commands, endowed with the weight of criminal sanctions. Ministerial decrees like those we've seen today require us to reflect on the damage parliamentary democracy has sustained /1
during this crisis. The restrictions may be justified, but this should be a matter for parliament. It is alarming that ministers are governing via press statements rather than the democratic process. /2
CONTACT TRACING: The Prime Minister’s plans to legally require pubs, restaurants and other premises to demand customers’ details and become data controllers overnight are excessive, intrusive and pose serious privacy risks. Voluntary systems that respect individuals’ judgement /3
This is the first time the CPS has ever launched a review of every charge under a specific law.
Huge thanks to our Researcher @madeleine_beth who has been calling courts! And Times journalist @fariha54 + human rights lawyer @Kirsty_Brimelow bringing much needed scrutiny👏
The Times view:
"This zealotry is unfair on law-abiding citizens who find themselves treated like criminals (..) That is particularly dangerous since the [rules] rely on public consent. Should large numbers decide to rebel, the police would not have the manpower to enforce them"