Say it ain’t so! We knew that radiation from mobile phone could affect biological processes, but we had no idea that the cellphone pasted to our face could make the fillings in our teeth actually leak mercury.

A new study from Shiraz University of Medical Sciences indicates that the electromagnetic radiation from mobile phones can actually interfere with the metallic fillings in our mouths and might even cause mercury to leak into our bodies. The study wasn’t comprehensive or large enough to make draw any solid conclusions, but it seems that cellphone use and higher mercury levels in urine are correlated.

That’s enough to make us use our Bluetooth headsets that much more.

[Via: textually]

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• Mobile phones study links use to cancer - again
• US experts urge research into cellphone effects on children
• Man sues T-Mobile, Motorola, and Samsung over cellphone radiation health effects
• Motorola launches two new “TrueComfort” Bluetooth headsets - H680 and H375
• Using a mobile phone while driving as dangerous as being drunk

Google’s native iPhone application used to be known as something of a redundant app. You could just as easily open your browser and point to Google’s mobile web portal to access most of the features available through the Google Mobile iPhone app.

That all changed with Google’s latest update to Google Mobile, enabling Voice Search.

Without a physical keyboard, voice-based searches have gained traction as the fastest, safest, and most convenient way to dial contacts. Google realized this and endowed their iPhone app with voice recognition capabilities. But, does it work as advertised?

Darn tootin’!

Start Google Mobile and you’re greeted by a prompt asking to let Google Mobile use your location data to determine your position. Bring the iPhone or iPhone 3G to your ear, wait for the “beep” (it’s more like a “beep-boop”), and start speaking your search query. Google Mobile sends your voice snippet to its servers for analysis and returns relevant search results.

This is where Google Mobile shines.

Even with constant background noise (like road hum, wind, Starbucks, etc. ) Google Mobile was able to recognize enunciated search phrases and returned accurate search results with ease. Google knows how to make a killer product and it seems they did their homework on voice recognition. Searches results are formatted to fit on the iPhone’s screen, and search results for businesses even list the nearest locations.

Google Mobile and its newfound Voice Search capability really shine when used behind the wheel. Rather than looking up nearby businesses with Google Maps, the new Google Mobile allows you to safely pick up the iPhone, speak a search query, and wait for Google to return with a list of nearby businesses. A simple tap on the nearest business (”Get Directions” or “Show Map”) whisks you away to Google Maps, from which you can continue navigating.

It would be great to see Google’s voice recognition engine used to power other nifty applications and services, but we’ll have to wait an see what Google does. In the meantime, start having fun with Google Mobile!

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Google drops new iPhone-optimized search portal
• Windows Live Search Mobile gets updated - speech/voice recognition
• Google to make its iPhone app voice enabled
• Google experimenting with voice search on Google Maps for BlackBerry Pearl
• New Google Mobile App for BlackBerry

BlackBerry Storm from SFR

Available for preorder tomorrow and hitting shelves December 3rd., carrier SFR has the BlackBerry Storm locked and loaded for the populace of France. Vodafone owns a 44% stake in SFR, so they’ve kindly extended their European exclusive of the BlackBerry 9500, with many more partners likely to get it before the end of December rolls around. One thing I’m looking forward to with the Storm is improved language support thanks to the virtual keypad, as shown in the video demo with the French AZERTY layout. The BlackBerry Storm price will sit at 99€ on contract, 399€ without. Hit up SFR’s flash site to get availability notifications by e-mail. J’espére qu’on ira le Storm en Quebec prochainement.

[via BlackBerry Cool]

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• BlackBerry Storm now available on Vodafone
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One of the interesting debates that surrounded today’s story about the BNP was what to do with the data once it got out. So far it’s pretty clear that the names and addresses of members of the BNP are way out of bounds in a legal sense. The political party, whether you agree with its far-right, largely racist policies or not, is still considered legitimate by the authorities, even though members of the Police force are banned from becoming members. BNP members remain private citizens under the law. So taking the data from the list and mashing it up with Google maps is, to use a technical term, pretty damn dodgy.

Even more problematic is using the default Google Maps pin image, which literally pinpoints a spot on the map as being the house of a BNP member. Obscuring the location of the pin by moving it around turned out to put it slap bang onto someone’s house who almost certainly had nothing to do with the BNP, as the original mapper found. As I said on Twitter, I was starting to see some really evil shit being done with the BNP list (in terms of data mashups) and implored any geeks out there to think twice and stop.

The debate was also raging on the list run by MySociety, a non-governmental organisation which has built mashups using government data before, often sailing close to the law in the interests of creating more transparency to the democratic process. One poster said they should do a mashup, but the suggestion was convincingly slapped down by MySociety’s Tom Steinburg:

“…the moment you sacrifice the values and compromises that hold together liberal democracies (such as a presumption of innocence and a right to privacy for people who’ve not actually been convicted of crimes) for the sake of humiliating your political opponents, you’re starting on a path far more likely to result in ruination for us all than a bunch of marginal wing nuts.”

Aside from that, MySociety has stayed clear of the data not least because the Information Commissioner has yet to pronounce on its use. Anything anyone does in the meantime could probably mean fines, and maybe some sort of knee-jerk legislation. Most likely the ICO will recommend all copies of this data should be destroyed.

The trouble is, the data (or at least, what we think is the data) is already out there. It’s too late.

And ominously I hear it’s being added to. There are already whispers circulating that “amended” copies of the BNP member list are doing the rounds on Bitorrent. People are settling scores with neighbours by adding them to a bogus BNP list. The potential for abuse is sky-high.

Now there is yet another Google mashup map which has used the data, still illegally under the strict letter of the law. “John Doe” and his (or her?) crew at BNP Near Me have obscured the actual addresses and aggregated BNP members into clumps around the main postcodes.

So instead of saying, effectively, “A member of the BNP lives right on this spot, we think, so feel free to go harrass them,” the result is “X BNP members in this postcode district” with a smudged red circle rather than a pin.

Even The Guardian newspaper has now wayed-in with a mashup plotting the data against constituencies.

However, I think most would agree that the entire episode has opened a complex can of worms that will still be crawling around for weeks, possibly months and years to come.

Despite rumours to the contrary, LG has announced the next generation Prada smartphone for European availabilityby the end of the month, accompanied by a Bluetooth-enabled watch called the Prada Link (model LG-LBA-T950) that flashes call notifications and shows SMS messages. 3G, GPS, Wi-Fi, 5 megapixel camera, haptic feedback, video calling, slider QWERTY keypad, and a 240 x 400 3″ touchscreen make for a pretty stylish package. The Link isn’t anything new, since we’ve seen a few Bluetooth watches break that ground, but this is a fine accessory to launch for the fashionable types mindful of social faux pas like checking your phone too much at chic gatherings. Europeans can expect to pay 600 Euros for the phone and 299 Euros for the Link. Youch. For more pictures, specs and video, check out Prada’s ridonkulously posh flash site.

[via LG]

Related News from IntoMobile:

• Bluetooth enabled watches from Fossil and Sony Ericsson
• LG Prada II - leaked specs on the LG Prada successor
• LG Prada Bluetooth headset busts onto the scene
• Panasonic’s Link to Cell connects your Bluetooth enabled mobile phone to cordless handsets in the home
• HD (720P) Videos of the Nokia N93i, N76, N800 and N95 at CES

BlackBerry 8900 from Carphone Warehouse

The Carphone Warehouse has just put the new BlackBerry Curve up on their “Coming Soon” site, undoubtedly to the excitement of many. So far, T-Mobile Germany is the only one who has publicly announced the BlackBerry 8900, but considering the Carphone Warehouse works with a bunch of carriers, including T-Mobile, it’s to be expected that they’d be offering this snazzy new device sooner or later. Rumours are also floating around that the 8900 will be lapping up on American shores in early 2009, and we can only presume that T-Mobile will continue to hold the exclusive. It’s a fine upgrade on the existing Curve series, featuring a 3.2 megapixel camera, 480 x 360 display, GPS, and Wi-Fi, but sadly no 3G. No pricing from Carphone Warehouse just yet, but the Curve should be out in December. Still looking for a Christmas present? Sign up over here to get notifications when the shiny new BlackBerry Curve is available.

[via Pocket-Lint]

Related News from IntoMobile:

• UK: Samsung 8MP i8510 arrives at Carphone Warehouse!
• Is the Nokia 8600 going to be launched in 3 days?
• BlackBerry Curve 8320 with BlackBerry OS 4.5 hitting AT&T soon
• T-Mobile BlackBerry 8320 Curve busts out with WiFi in the wild
• Carphone Warehouse expecting to hock 10,000 UK iPhones on launch day

pimg src=”http://paidcontent.org/images/uploads/pekkaalipietila.png” alt=”image” style=”float:right;clear:right” width=”90″ /img src=”http://paidcontent.org/images/uploads/blyklogo.png” alt=”image” style=”float:right;clear:right” width=”92″ height=”54″ / Ad-funded, youth-oriented mobile virtual network operator a href=”http://www.blyk.com” title=”Blyk”Blyk/a has raised a massive $50.4 million (40 million euros) round from its existing investors - bone of Europe’s biggest media/tech investments of the year/b.nbsp; The funding is a real boost for the company, both in terms of money as well as belief in its business model, which some a href=”http://www.moconews.net/entry/419-blyk-advertisers-skeptical-on-subscriber-numbers-just-dont-get-it” title=”advertisers weren’t always convinced”advertisers weren’t always convinced/a of. It also has a new partnership with operators in place, though the brief statement did not go into detail as to what this new strategy entails.
/p
p
Rather ominously, CEO Pekka Ala-Pietilä also warned that “like everyone else [we] are feeling the impact of the world’s financial situation,” and had “taken decisive steps to cut costs and streamline our organization.” It’s unclear whether this means layoffs. It plans, however, to continue its international expansion.
/p
p
Since its launch last year in September, Blyk UK has amassed 200,000 members and claims that the average response rate is over 25 percent for the 2000+ campaigns it has run. The company, which was started by ex-Nokia (a href=”http://finance.paidcontent.org/paidcontent?Page=QUOTETicker=NOK” class=”ticker” title=”NOK”NYSE: NOK/a) exec Ala-Pietila, has not disclosed who all of its investors are, but has scored two previous VC rounds - one in 2006 known to include Paris’ Sofinnova Partners (which said at the time it was willing to commit 30 million euros, now $38 million) and another this January known to involve Goldman Sachs and Industrial Financial Investments Company. More to come…
/p
pstrongRelated/strong/p
ul class=”related”
lia href=”http://www.moconews.net/entry/419-ad-funded-mvno-blyk-to-roll-out-in-germany-spain-and-belgium” title=”Ad-Funded MVNO Blyk To Roll Out In Germany, Spain And Belgium”Ad-Funded MVNO Blyk To Roll Out In Germany, Spain And Belgium/a/li
lia href=”http://www.moconews.net/entry/419-blyk-advertisers-skeptical-on-subscriber-numbers-just-dont-get-it” title=”Blyk Advertisers, Skeptical On Subscriber Numbers, Just ‘Don’t Get It’”Blyk Advertisers, Skeptical On Subscriber Numbers, Just ‘Don’t Get It’/a/li
lia href=”http://www.moconews.net/entry/419-blyk-gets-new-funding-round-expanding-to-netherlands” title=”Blyk Gets New Funding Round, Expanding To Netherlands”Blyk Gets New Funding Round, Expanding To Netherlands/a/li
/ul

piOur streamlined mobile application for the BlackBerry and other smart devices brings you the latest headlines quickly on the go. a href=”http://m.paid.mwap.at/”Click here to download/a./i
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pVerizon’s just a few steps away from becoming the top dog in the carrier race. The FCC has told the carrier it will have to divest business holdings in a total of 105 markets within 120 days to close the acquisition of Alltel (a href=”http://finance.paidcontent.org/paidcontent?Page=QUOTETicker=AT” class=”ticker” title=”AT”NYSE: AT/a), iRCR/i a href=”http://www.rcrwireless.com/article/20081118/WIRELESS/811179977/1099/newsletter31″ title=”reports”reports/a. The FCC agreed on the 100 markets Verizon (a href=”http://finance.paidcontent.org/paidcontent?Page=QUOTETicker=VZ” class=”ticker” title=”VZ”NYSE: VZ/a) offered to sell off prior to the FCC’s approval a href=”a href=”http://www.moconews.net/entry/419-fcc-oks-verizons-28-billion-alltel-acquisition-and-sprint-clearwire-dea/”FCC OKs Verizon’s $28 Billion Alltel Acquisition And Sprint-Clearwire Deal/a”earlier this month/a and added five more markets out of 218 that were flagged as potential problems during the FCC’s vetting process. The carrier will now have to sell its various spectrum holdings, network assets and customers in all of the markets to push the acquisition through. The FCC didn’t put any conditions on the divestitures, but recommended the carrier at least consider regional, local and rural providers when making the sale. U.S. Cellular is expected to pick up some new customers and network strength in the process.nbsp;
/p
pstrongRelated/strong/p
ul class=”related”
lia href=”http://www.moconews.net/entry/419-fcc-votes-on-election-day-for-white-spaces-clearwire-sprint-deal-and-ve/” class=”entry_title”FCC Votes On Election Day For White Spaces, Clearwire-Sprint Deal And Verizon-Alltel Merger/a/li
lia href=”http://www.moconews.net/entry/419-fcc-oks-verizons-28-billion-alltel-acquisition-and-sprint-clearwire-dea/”FCC OKs Verizon’s $28 Billion Alltel Acquisition And Sprint-Clearwire Deal/a/li
lia href=”http://www.moconews.net/entry/419-verizon-will-complete-alltel-deal-says-ceo”Verizon Will Complete Alltel Deal, Says CEO/a/li
/ul

piSocial Media Deals Report: This 199-page report, filled with charts and data, examines the categories, number and size of VC and MA deal in social media from 2007 through 2008. stronga href=”http://www.paidcontent.org/reports/”Visit the ContentNext Reports page/a/strongi/p
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pimg src=”http://www.mogees.com/images/logo.png” align=”right” /a href=”http://www.mogees.com/” title=”Mogees”Mogees/a is launching an SDK for Android that will allow developers to charge for applications on the Android Market using its mobile billing platform. In doing so, it’s beating Google (a href=”http://finance.paidcontent.org/paidcontent?Page=QUOTETicker=GOOG” class=”ticker” title=”GOOG”NSDQ: GOOG/a) to the punch by at least a few months. Currently, Google doesn’t have a system that allows developers to charge for applications, but it plans to fix that by early next year. The Mountain View, Calif.-based startup thinks it hit a unique window of opportunity that prompted it to launch its payments SDK on the Android platform. Handango and MobiHand also sell Android apps, but users must visit their sites to buy them.
/p
p
CEO and co-founder David Li: “We believe there are many developers who would be interested in getting paid for their applications today, and not wait until next year sometime. Lots of Android phones have been purchased and lots more will be bought through the holiday season. We want to help developers to monetize now.” In response to questions via email, he also pointed out that Google’s Android team hasn’t provided much detail about their billing service other than the fact that developers will get to keep 70 percent and 30 percent will go to the carrier. In contrast, Mogees will charge 10 percent and a 30-cent fee per transaction. As incentive to use the platform, Mogees will give the first thousand developers that sign up free payment processing for the rest of the year, up to $1 million. The company expects to launch additional SDKs for BlackBerry and iPhone by the end of 2009.nbsp;
/p
piOur streamlined mobile application for the BlackBerry and other smart devices brings you the latest headlines quickly on the go. a href=”http://m.paid.mwap.at/”Click here to download/a./i
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pa href=”http://www.bcsfootball.org/bcsfootball/”img src=”http://msn.foxsports.com/id/8812076_18_1.jpg” align=”right” width=”180″ //aFor most of the sports-viewing world, the big news in the deal announced today between ESPN (a href=”http://finance.paidcontent.org/paidcontent?Page=QUOTETicker=DIS” class=”ticker” title=”DIS”NYSE: DIS/a) and the Bowl Championship Series is the price tag—an estimated $500 million—and the apparently inexorable move of major sports from free over-the-air broadcast to subscription-supported cable. But, as a href=”http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-espn-to-get-bcs-starting-in-2011-deal-includes-digital-international”we suggested yesterday/a, it includes some digital news as well: the package of exclusive TV, radio, digital, international and marketing rights from 2011 through 2014 covers broadband and mobile simulcasts. An ESPN spokesman says the network has the same broad digital rights internationally as it does in the U.S. iMore on the digital component on a href=”http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-espn-bcs-deal-includes-rights-to-simulcast-bowl-games-on-espn360com-mob/”paidContent.org/a/i
/p
piSocial Media Deals Report: This 199-page report, filled with charts and data, examines the categories, number and size of VC and MA deal in social media from 2007 through 2008. stronga href=”http://www.paidcontent.org/reports/”Visit the ContentNext Reports page/a/strongi/p
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pimg src=”http://paidcontent.org/images/uploads/VH1_homescreen.jpg” alt=”image” align=”right” width=”194″ height=”272″ /– bFlavor Flav in your pocket/b: Yeah boyeee! America’s favorite clock collector, Flavor Flav, and other VH1 stars are coming to mobile. VH1 is launching a mobile instant messaging application, built by Redmond, Wash.-based Mobui, on ATT (a href=”http://finance.paidcontent.org/paidcontent?Page=QUOTETicker=T” class=”ticker” title=”T”NYSE: T/a) aimed at connecting viewers to popular on-air programs. VH1’s talent will also routinely participate in discussions on the “VH1 Watch and Discuss Live Chat” forum. The downloadable application is available for a one-time fee of $8 or for a monthly fee for $3. VH1 is working on launching the application on more carriers and devices soon. a href=”http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/VH1-Mobui-Launch-New-Mobile/story.aspx?guid={D7873D72-33F5-4AC5-A937-E18DDD1B14ED}” title=”Release”Release/a.
/p
p
– bCrisp develops and hosts People.com/b: Crisp Wireless has added People.com to its expanding suite of entertainment-focused mobile websites. The new site, which Crisp developed and is now hosting, features news, celebrity photos, fashion, SMS alerts, newsletters and the capability to share content via email and SMS. Crisp is also providing ad sales support for the site that will range from banner ads to interstitial ads and video pre-rolls. Crisp now has more than 200 mobile websites under its net.
/p
p
– bShoot videos with Verizon and FunMobility/b: Verizon Wireless (a href=”http://finance.paidcontent.org/paidcontent?Page=QUOTETicker=VZ” class=”ticker” title=”VZ”NYSE: VZ/a) is teaming up with FunMobility to give customers a new outlet for them to share videos shot from their mobile phones. FunMobility’s aFLIX service allows customers to upload videos into a range of categories and gives users an opportunity to create profiles and share public or private messages with other members. The aFLIX application comes with a $5 monthly subscription fee.
/p
p
– bPlayPhone and Cincinnati Bell offer ringtones and more/b: PlayPhone has a new distribution deal with Cincinnati Bell that gives customers a new library of ringtones, games and video to purchase. PlayPhone’s catalog, which will be on the carrier’s content deck, includes audio, video and games from a growing list of content providers such as the four major record labels, top game publishers and entertainment studios like Sony Pictures, Disney and Vivendi. a href=”http://www.ibtimes.com/prnews/20081118/playphone.htm” title=”Release”Release/a.nbsp;
/p
piCheck out the best business jobs in digital media. a href=”http://jobs.paidcontent.org/”Go here/a for paidContent.org Job Board./i/p
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Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo has elaborated on the Android handset due to drop in 2009 announced in October. South Korean service provider, KTF, will also be carrying the device, purportedly for 20% less than the usual cost of smartphones due to savings from using Google’s free operating system. We had already seen what doors are opened by a free OS through basement entrepreneurs like Australia-based Kogan, but as seen by these savings, larger operators are in a good position to slash prices on their phones and rope in a wider audience.

[via Reuters]

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Following today’s news story about the far-right British National Party losing its member database, which was then mashed with a Google map, at least someone is retaining a sense of the absurd about the whole thing. Enter LOL Griffin, another mashup site of sorts, but this time between the LOLCats series on the ICanHasCheezburger site and Nick Griffin, leader of the BNP. Enjoy.

BREAKING NOW:

Creator of the Map, Ben Charlton, removes it from his site. Here’s his post explaining why:

Update

I have decided to take down the map. Many people have commented that the map does give a false impression of accuracy, despite my making this clear, and I’m tempted to agree. I do not want to single anybody out and by removing the accuracy from the map it is possible that it ends up incorrectly implying a property contains a BNP member. It has been suggested that an inaccurate map that doesn’t make that clear is worse than publishing the list itself, and I think that’s a reasonable comment.

[Updated: Please see further updates below]

Original story:

As news about the leaking of the membership list of the far-right/racist British National Party broke in the UK, it quickly became a headline story in the mainstream media. But the chatter amongst geeks on Twitter this morning was about the possible “mashup” that could be done of the members’ postcodes with a Google Map. As soon as that idea had propagated, it was bound to happen, since the list has been available on Bitorrent and on Wikileaks for around 24 hrs now. Frankly I thought it would take a little longer, but as I debated the issue on Twitter this morning, someone sent me a link to an already-built map.

And it’s scary.

The map is a sea of red pins, indicating that there are in fact BNP members spread pretty widely across the UK. London is barely visible under the map. Zooming out means that the map can no longer render all the data points adequately. It’s worth remembering that Britain is in fact one of the least racist, most tolerant nations in Europe, but the map looks pretty scary covered in these large red pins.

Ben Charlton, owner of the site Spod.cx has created the map here.

He writes:

As various news organisations have been reporting, the membership list for the British National Party has been leaked online. It seems a court injunction kept this quiet for some time, but the list has well and truly escaped - currently hosted on bittorrent and the always excellent wikileaks site.

Curious about the list, I managed to find a copy and after checking it for the obvious odd family members or people you know and think might be members, I thought it’d be cool to make a Google Maps mashup of the data. I extracted the postcodes from the member list and converted them into latitude and longitude co-ordinates, which are then plotted on the map.

The map is a bit slow to render, especially if there are a lot of data points, but it’s interesting to see the distribution of members. As I’m only generating a list of latitude and longitude points, I’m not revealing any of the actual list data. If you want to find out who the hate-filled racist that lives near you is, you’ll need to find and look through the list yourself.

The implications of this action are pretty big. I speculated on Twitter this morning that a mashup which identified the actual locations of BNP members would be highly problematic, and possibly even subject to vigilante attack. However I still believe that a map which showed more general areas, like towns and cities, could actually be helpful to local authorities for creating policies to tackle attitudes towards diversity. If you were a local councillor and had been made aware that there were lots of BNP members in your area, you may be able to do something about the attitudes which lead to support for such a far-right political party.

But now this more accurate map is out of the bag, and others are probably planning similar maps, the implications are far reaching. What no-one would wish is for a witch-hunt to begin. Plotting this map will make the data available to just about anyone. My personal opinion is that in this, quite accurate form, it should be taken down. On the one hand the BNP has a notorious history of violence. On the other, it also has a history of attracting disaffected young people who later regret joining - their lives should not be tarred by their actions as naive youngsters.

UPDATE 1: I emailed Ben Charlton about the map and emailed him some questions to which he has now responded.

He says the map is not as a accurate I feared: “I deliberately only pulled out postcodes from the file, converted those to latitude/longitude, then stripped a chunk of precision off the end. It gives a vague location, probably to street level, but it’s certainly not accurate by any means.”

1. Why create the map?

“I thought what I’ve seen a lot of people say - it would be interesting to visualise the data in a way that makes sense to people. It’s all very well being able to look for people in your home town, but it’s nice to see easily how that compares to membership in other locations.”

2. How accurate are people’s locations? Would someone be able to work out they lived next door to a member.

“The original list is very specific - listing addresses and names. I deliberately only pulled out postcodes from the file, converted those to latitude/longitude, then stripped a chunk of precision off the end. It gives a vague location, probably to street level, but it’s certainly not accurate by any means. Of course, there’s nothing to stop people then looking on the proper list - it’s not hard to find now.”

3. Do you plan to maintain the map?

“It’s based on the leaked list. If there’s a new list leaked I might update it, but for the time being it won’t change.”

4. Are you worried about BNP members identifying you?

“It’s always a concern, but I deliberately kept my app vague so as not to directly identify anyone as it’s not my intention to cause upset. I’d hope I’m not a target for too much abuse - especially compared to what a lot of other sites are saying.”

Update 2: However, an inaccurate map could be more dangerous than an accurate one. As others point out in comments below, the Google pin can, and perhaps should, be changed to something more like a “circle with fading semi-transparent edges” to prevent someone getting the wrong idea about their neighbour.

Update 3: Map creator Ben Charlton has now posted a heat-map of the data here but it largely shows what you might expect - that BNP membership roughly maps to urban centres of population.

As news about the leaking of the membership list of the far-right/racist British National Party broke in the UK, it quickly became a headline story in the mainstream media. But the chatter amongst geeks on Twitter this morning was about the possible “mashup” that could be done of the members’ postcodes with a Google Map. As soon as that idea had propagated, it was bound to happen, since the list has been available on Bitorrent and on Wikileaks for around 24 hrs now. Frankly I thought it would take a little longer, but as I debated the issue on Twitter this morning, someone sent me a link to an already-built map.

And it’s scary.

The map is a sea of red pins, indicating that there are in fact BNP members spread pretty widely across the UK. London is barely visible under the map. Zooming out means that the map can no longer render all the data points adequately. It’s worth remembering that Britain is in fact one of the least racist, most tolerant nations in Europe, but the map looks pretty scary covered in these large red pins.

Ben Charlton, owner of the site Spod.cx has created the map here.

He writes:

As various news organisations have been reporting, the membership list for the British National Party has been leaked online. It seems a court injunction kept this quiet for some time, but the list has well and truly escaped - currently hosted on bittorrent and the always excellent wikileaks site.

Curious about the list, I managed to find a copy and after checking it for the obvious odd family members or people you know and think might be members, I thought it’d be cool to make a Google Maps mashup of the data. I extracted the postcodes from the member list and converted them into latitude and longitude co-ordinates, which are then plotted on the map.

The map is a bit slow to render, especially if there are a lot of data points, but it’s interesting to see the distribution of members. As I’m only generating a list of latitude and longitude points, I’m not revealing any of the actual list data. If you want to find out who the hate-filled racist that lives near you is, you’ll need to find and look through the list yourself.

The implications of this action are pretty big. I speculated on Twitter this morning that a mashup which identified the actual locations of BNP members would be highly problematic, and possibly even subject to vigilante attack. However I still believe that a map which showed more general areas, like towns and cities, could actually be helpful to local authorities for creating policies to tackle attitudes towards diversity. If you were a local councillor and had been made aware that there were lots of BNP members in your area, you may be able to do something about the attitudes which leads to support for such a far-right political party.

But now this more accurate map is out of the bag, and others are probably planning similar maps, the implications are far reaching. What no-one would wish is for a witch-hunt to begin. Plotting this map will make the data available to just about anyone. My personal opinion is that in this, quite accurate form, it should be taken down. On the one hand the BNP has a notorious history of violence. On the other, it also has a history of attracting disaffected young people who later regret joining - their lives should not be tarred by their actions as naive youngsters.

UPDATE: I emailed Ben Charlton about the map and emailed him some questions to which he has now responded.

He says the map is not as a accurate I feared: “I deliberately only pulled out postcodes from the file, converted those to latitude/longitude, then stripped a chunk of precision off the end. It gives a vague location, probably to street level, but it’s certainly not accurate by any means.”

1. Why create the map?

“I thought what I’ve seen a lot of people say - it would be interesting to visualise the data in a way that makes sense to people. It’s all very well being able to look for people in your home town, but it’s nice to see easily how that compares to membership in other locations.”

2. How accurate are people’s locations? Would someone be able to work out they lived next door to a member.

“The original list is very specific - listing addresses and names. I deliberately only pulled out postcodes from the file, converted those to latitude/longitude, then stripped a chunk of precision off the end. It gives a vague location, probably to street level, but it’s certainly not accurate by any means. Of course, there’s nothing to stop people then looking on the proper list - it’s not hard to find now.”

3. Do you plan to maintain the map?

“It’s based on the leaked list. If there’s a new list leaked I might update it, but for the time being it won’t change.”

4. Are you worried about BNP members identifying you?

“It’s always a concern, but I deliberately kept my app vague so as not to directly identify anyone as it’s not my intention to cause upset. I’d hope I’m not a target for too much abuse - especially compared to what a lot of other sites are saying.”