Concerned? You Should Be!

I have just read THIS in the Times, and urge you to do the same.

We have all heard about the loss of two data discs containing 25 million personal records, and one or two other lesser losses, but how many people realise that during this year there have been no fewer than 2,110 such security breaches within government?

There are plenty more facts and concerns within this article, by none less than David Davis, whom I met and who impressed me immensely at an event a few months ago (see picture). It is an authoritative catalogue of what should be one of the most worrying aspects of British governmental activity today.

I must be far from being alone in finding the media coverage of this whole topic somewhat disappointing, as the news is rapidly dropped or at least very much toned-down after the initial revelation. I have worked in central government (for more than 22 years, before being made redundant in 1996) and my last job there was as the entire IT support "team" for a chunk of the DTI.

I am also a dedicated IT user myself, in my attempt to reduce paper usage as far as possible, and am well aware of both the benefits and the dangers of technology-based operations. As David Davis said in his article (though apparently missed by one of the commenters!) the application of IT and other technologies in the public sector will of course not be ignored. They just need to be applied far more sensibly and with a different attitude and approach.

Instead of being a way to "own" every citizen of this country, the technology should be geared toward better quality governance, and data should be treated as held in trust, not as a right by Ministers and others to do with whatever they like. The present Soviet-style of government in Britain can never get this attitude straightened out, as its own agenda is, and always will be, entirely self-serving.

Thus Occam's razor shows us that the only way our personal information can ever be made even reasonably safe is via a change of government. Lefty governments (and this one still is, despite the thin veneer of respectability carefully devised by Blair and Brown all those years ago) will never, but never, be able to be trusted with this, any more than they ever have been with earlier paper-based personal information. It's just that today it is so easy to peruse, sift (e.e. for political leanings), and pass around to Ministers' buddies far, far more such data in its modern, electronic form.

One thing is certain: the ID Cards national database must never be allowed to come into existence, so must be prevented from doing so between now and the next General Election, after which (on the assumption of a change of government, which seems very likely) the scheme will be scrapped anyway.