Aug242017

Consultation outcome: Salmon fisheries in England and on the Border Esk

DEFRA

Updated: Published Managing Salmon Fisheries in England and on the Border Esk – Summary of initial consultation responses.

The Environment Agency want to understand how they can better manage salmon fisheries in England and on the Border Esk. The outcome of this consultation could affect people whose livelihoods and interests depend on salmon.

This is a chance to give your views on how salmon fisheries are managed and help shape the future of salmon stocks in England.

The responses from this consultation will help develop a better way to protect salmon stocks.

If the best way to protect salmon stocks includes new byelaws or Net Limitation Orders, the Environment Agency will advertise and consult on these so you can make further comments.

Aug242017

Press release: HMRC reminds parents to update their children’s educational details

HM Government

As exams results are revealed across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, HMRC are urging parents to inform them if any of their children are aged 16+ and continuing in full-time education or are undertaking an apprenticeship otherwise their payments will stop. Alternatively, if a young person leaves education or training – for example to start full-time work or because their course has ended – claimants must report this change straight away to prevent the build-up of overpayments which they will have to pay back.

Parents can use their Personal Tax Account (PTA) to update both their Child Benefit and Child Tax Credit information online in a matter of minutes; it’s quick and easy, and more than 12 million customers have registered for the PTA so far.

Angela MacDonald, Director General of Customer Services, said:

Congratulations to all students getting their results today. Once parents or guardians know what their child has decided to do it’s really important they let us know as soon as possible, so they continue to get the right benefits and credits.

This can be done quickly and simply using the Personal Tax Account, which is available 24 hours-a-day, seven days-a-week. That means that parents can let us know their child’s education status, at a time that suits them ahead of the 31 August deadline.

  1. Customers can access their Personal Tax Account on any device – PC, tablet or smartphone. It is secure and takes just a few minutes to get started. Those doing it for the first time will need:

    • their National Insurance number
    • either a recent payslip or P60 (a passport can be used if you don’t have these)
    • a phone to receive a security access code.

  2. There are three simple steps for customers to get started:

    • Go to gov.uk/personal-tax-account and click ‘start now’.
    • Set up a Government Gateway account (if not already held) by answering a few simple questions – this is where a payslip or P60 is needed. A security access code will then be sent to the customer’s phone.
    • Enter the access code on their phone when prompted, which will take them straight to their account.

  3. People can continue to claim for teenagers aged between the ages of 16 and 19 years old if they are in qualifying full-time education or training. Online information about what counts as education and training can be found on GOV.UK.

  4. Young people must be accepted onto qualifying education or training before their 19th birthday to be eligible. Child Tax Credit claimants need to confirm their continued eligibility annually for 16, 18 and 19 year olds.

  5. Those unable to access the internet can also inform HMRC of changes on the phone by calling 0300 200 3100 or sending a letter to: Child Tax Credits: Tax Credits Office, Preston, PR1 4AT and/or Child Benefit: Child Benefit Office, PO Box 1, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE88 1AA.

  6. Claimants could be given a penalty for failing to report a change, or even prosecuted for benefit fraud if they are found to have deliberately claimed money they were not entitled to.

  7. If customers need help defining what counts as education, the government’s website contains information to help them. Some of the educational options available to 16 year olds include GCSEs, A/AS levels, national diplomas and NVQs up to level 3, as well as apprenticeships or traineeships. The qualifying education level is non-advanced, so studying for a degree at university or a BTEC Higher National Certificate does not count.

  8. HMRC’s Flickr channel can be found here

  9. Follow HMRC’s press office on Twitter @HMRCpressoffice

Patrick O’Brien
Tel: 03000 585 024 Email: patrick.obrien@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk

Adrian Hallchurch Tel: 03000 585 020 Email: adrian.hallchurch@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk

Out of hours Tel: 07860 359544

Aug232017

Emigration and food insecurity in Central American ‘dry corridor’ focus of new UN-backed study

United Nations

23 August 2017 – A new inter-agency study released today found a correlation between prolonged droughts in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras &#8211 exacerbated by El Niño phenomenon from 2014 to 2016 &#8211 and the increase in irregular migration from these countries to the United States, the United Nations food relief agency reported.

&#8220The study provides an important insight into why people flee and the impact on the family members staying behind,&#8221 said World Food Programme (WFP) Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, Miguel Barreto.

&#8220It is perhaps this second aspect which makes this study stand out from much of the analysis conducted on migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to date,&#8221 he added.

Food Security and Emigration shows the need to invest in long-term programmes to discourage people in the Dry Corridor from emigrating, and to reduce the risks for emigrants and the impact on the families left behind.

The study indicates that a trend of younger and more vulnerable people are leaving food-insecure areas &#8211 especially in the Dry Corridor, a drought-prone area that crosses these countries.

Family members left behind face the burden of paying the debts of those who have migrated. If the emigration is unsuccessful, the family faces the problem of growing debt and of how to meet their food needs, the report said.

The document also pointed out that 47 per cent of the families interviewed were food- insecure, noting that these levels have never been previously recorded in the region even in assessments carried out over the past three years in the Dry Corridor.

Source: FOOD SECURITY AND EMIGRATION – Why people flee and the impact on family members left behind in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

Additionally, some 72 per cent of the families interviewed said they were applying &#8220emergency&#8221 coping strategies, such as selling their land, farm animals and tools to buy food.

Meanwhile, the study reveals that in the cases of successful emigration, &#822078 per cent of households in the home country receive monthly remittances, of which 42 per cent indicate that remittances are their only source of income.&#8221

Indeed, more than half of the money received from emigrants is used by family members to buy food, followed by agricultural investments &#8211 like buying land and animals &#8211 and investing in small businesses.

This study was funded and jointly produced by WFP, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) with the collaboration of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Organization of American States (OAS).

The research is a follow-up to the results and recommendations of the 2015 exploratory study on the links between migration, violence and food security, Hunger without Borders.

Aug232017

Australian Jane Connors appointed first UN rights advocate for victims of sexual exploitation

United Nations

23 August 2017 – Secretary-General António Guterres has appointed Jane Connors, Australian law professional and long-time human rights advocate, as the first United Nations advocate for the rights of victims of sexual exploitation and abuse.

The appointment is in line with the Secretary-General’s pledge &#8211 made in his report on ‘Special measures for protection from sexual exploitation and abuse: a new approach’ &#8211 that the UN will put the rights and dignity of victims at the forefront of its prevention and response efforts.

Ms. Connors, currently International Advocacy Director, Law and Policy, for Amnesty International in Geneva, brings to the position a long and multi-faceted career in human rights advocacy, as well as human rights and humanitarian assistance in the academic, UN and civil society spheres.

As Victims’ Rights Advocate, Ms. Connors will support an integrated, strategic response to victim assistance in coordination with relevant UN system actors.

She will work with government institutions, civil society, and national and legal and human rights organizations to build networks of support and to help ensure that the full effect of local laws, including remedies for victims, are brought to bear.

Before joining Amnesty International, she was Director of the Research and Right to Development Division at the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). She also worked in OHCHR’s Human Rights Treaties Division and as Chief of the Special Procedures Branch.

From 1996 and 2002, she was the Chief of the Women’s Rights Section in the Division for the Advancement of Women in the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs in New York.

Aug232017

Press release: Metropolitan Police’s use of Facial Recognition Technology at the Notting Hill Carnival, 2017

HM Government

Paul Wiles, Biometrics Commissioner writes about the use of Facial Recognition Technology at the Notting Hill Carnival.

This kind of biometric technology (Facial Recognition Technology) has the potential to be a really useful crime fighting tool but we are not there yet. It needs to be properly tested and evaluated if it is going to be effective and it will need to be handled carefully by the police and the government if it is going to be trusted by the public.

Key messages

  1. There is a public benefit in the use of such technology if it can be shown to help prevent the problems that there have been at previous carnivals by assisting the police to catch offenders or prevent crime.

  2. Tests of facial matching for spotting individuals in large crowds have so far had very poor success – hence the Metropolitan Police’s trial. It is good that they have made their trial public but they must carry out a proper evaluation and publish the results.

  3. The police already hold over 20 million facial images but there is as yet no single, shared policing system for storing and searching police held images nor an evaluation of its accuracy and usefulness.

  4. Police forces need to work together to agree on a single facial recognition system that has been proved to work in the field and government needs to create a legislative framework for its use, with independent oversight to provide public assurance, as it has done for DNA and fingerprints.

  5. The previous Biometrics Commissioner made similar points as have others, such as the Science and Technology Select Committee, and we have yet to see what the government proposes as their Biometrics Strategy has been delayed for some time.

Broader explanation

  1. Police already hold over 20 million facial images on both the Police National Database and in separate force systems. Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary (Scotland) recently commented unfavourably on this situation since it means that different standards are being applied across the UK. Most of these facial images are custody images. The courts held in 2012 that these holdings were unlawful and the Home Office responded to that judgment in 2017. I have commented on this response elsewhere.

  2. Current police interest in facial matching has moved on from custody images to whether it can be used to identify individual offenders in public places. The capability to do this is still unproven since tests in such situations have shown very poor match rates unlike match rates in controlled environments.[1]

  3. The police are conducting a number of trials to see if facial searching and matching technology can be employed effectively in crowded public places. Such experiments should be properly designed and evaluated, preferably involving external experts, and the results published. The police should also evaluate their use of facial images generally in order to demonstrate that they have a useful and cost-effective purpose, based on adequate matching quality. They also need to explain how they will deal with potential false matches.

  4. There is limited research on this area and most of it has been conducted in the USA. Evaluations should include not just the behaviour of the matching algorithms but how they work in the total criminal justice system and how human decision making in such systems affects the accuracy of match rates.[2]

  5. Facial matching systems have improved significantly recently and the use being explored by the Metropolitan Police may, at some point, reach acceptable quality for operational use but presently that remains to be demonstrated.

  6. The use of facial images, especially in public places, is very intrusive of individual freedom, especially because images can be captured without the subject being aware. The public benefit of the use of such an intrusive technology must outweigh the interference in individual privacy. Such a difficult balance between public benefit and individual privacy should not be decided by the police but is best decided by Parliament through informed debate and legislation. As is currently the case for DNA and fingerprints the legislation should include independent oversight to reassure the public that their privacy is being properly protected.

Paul Wiles, Biometrics Commissioner

[1] The most extensive evaluations of the facial matching capabilities of different systems have been carried out by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

[2] See e.g. D. White et al: Error Rates in Users of Automatic Facial Recognition Software, Plos One, 2015, 10 (10): eo 139827, showing how human error can reduce further the effectiveness of facial recognition systems.