Comments on: Information: the new public sector battleground?

By: Martyn Thomas

Martyn Thomas — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 21:25:29 +0000

I suggest:

a) personal data held in machine processable form should be guarded more carefully than the same data on paper, to reflect the lower barrier to abusing such data.
b) larger collections of personal data should be guarded more carefully than smaller collections, to reflect the greater value of the data to a greater number of potential abusers and therefore the greater threat of attempts to access the data unlawfully.
c) some collections of personal data will be of such a size and/or of such sensitivity that the collections should be guarded as carefully as if they carried the protective markings “RESTRICTED”, “SECRET” etc.
d) guidelines should be published to enable government departments and other organisations to identify the nature of the protection that should be applied to the data collections that they hold.
e) these guidelines should be enforceable in the courts.

By: ukliberty

ukliberty — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 17:12:56 +0000

It seems a fundamental problem that the government (and some Committee members) thinks there is an ‘awkward squad’, or even a conspiracy, rather than people who – like the government – have good, constructive intentions.

It seems to be a culture that says “we will only listen to people who agree with us”, but it has to change or Transformational Government is doomed and we will keep getting this feeling that it is about having things ‘done to’ us rather than what we can do with it.

For any of the proposals we are discussing, I think something like Bruce Schneier’s five steps are invaluable:

1. what is the problem we are trying to solve?
2. how well would our proposal solve the problem?
3. what new problems would the proposal introduce?
4. what are the economic and social costs?
5. given the above, is the proposal worth deploying?

I’ve trawled through Hansard, Committee evidence and other publications, Strategic Action Plans and so on, and I can see very little evidence of that sort of thinking.

Instead what seems to be the case is that the centre wants a particular proposal to be deployed and then it scrabbles around for reasons to help sell it (eg ContactPoint and Victora Climbie).

It’s back to front!

Yes, Transformational Government is fixable. But what needs to be fixed first is the way the centre thinks about it.

By: Ian Brown

Ian Brown — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 01:37:14 +0000

I would say: f—ed.

BTW, isn’t it oxymoronic to say “an organized third sector which enables citizens to own their own data”?