To say that you need to keep the security details “secret”, and at the same time that “only” 330,000 accredited and vetted public servants will know the details is, frankly, a farcical statement to make, and implies a basic lack of understanding as to how basic security can and should be implemented.

You are, I’m afraid, suffering the fallout from the effect of years of government “trust us…” statements, which have lost virtually all credibility with the public, not just from “troublemaking” NGOs.

This country has a long way to go to fully engage with FoI and begin to appreciate just how much it can make for better, stronger and trusted government(it took 20 years in Canada). FoI is NOT the enemy of “security”. But if the public is not able to see that the job has been done properly, trust will never be achieved.

This doesn’t mean revealing details as to how anyone can access records and personal details.

But it does mean, for starters, demonstrating how those 330,000 “accredited and vetted public servants” do NOT have unnecessarily wide and unrestricted access to ContactPoint data.

You make great play of the fact that ContactPoint will be secure becuase no-one knows how it works. I imagine therefore that it is part of the strategy that members of the public do not know about it at all, and teachers (for example) see it only as another piece of recording and reporting for the DCSF that forms the core competence for their position as key workers. Could you outline the sophisticated communications strategy that has been used to make sure so few people have even heard of it?

I learned these very same principles as a young whipper-snapper in Uttar Pradesh, trying to get into the gun cabinet which my father used to lock up so assiduously every evening. It had a fifteen-lever lock manufactured by Thrubb and Co. of Ealing, and the resulting key was so enormous the Old Man could hardly fit it into his jodhpurs without causing a social scandal. It made no difference, of course: I simply promised the punkah-wallah a bottle of father’s finest Scotch to retrieve said key from the trousers, and later disposed of a pair of pater’s Purdeys in the bazaar in exchange for a rather spirited pet monkey.

This same common sense approach has stood me in good stead ever since, and is quite good enough for the entire nation’s youth of today.

What do we do?
CESG aims to protect and promote the vital interests of the UK by providing advice and assistance on the security of communications and electronic data. We deliver information assurance policy, services and advice that government and other customers need to protect vital information services. We work on a cost recovery basis for all customer-specific solutions and services, though IA policy and Guidance documentation is usually free of charge to the UK official community.
With experience acquired over decades of working with customers on projects and problems, CESG is well qualified to give you authoritative advice on assessing current and foreseeable risks.

Their phone no. is 01242 709 141.

May I ask, Sir Bonar, has the department taken advantage of this resource? If not, why not? If so, what were CESG’s recommendations? And have they been implemented?

A copy of their report made public might stem the flow of civil liberties complaints.

I look forward to an answer from your office soon. Although it will not come from you. It is a shame for such a distinguished career in politics to end in failure but, for you, Comrade, the darkness is at noon. The collective has no pipe. And incitement to smoke is a crime. Members of HSE’s elite commando force are even now abseiling from the roof of your office …