WRITTEN ON January 25th, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Foundation of Trust, Political engagement, What do we want?

The Sunday Times exposes Experian corrupting our legislative process. It seems they paid a bent peer who agreed to amend legislation in the company’s favour.

Lord Taylor of Blackburn claimed he had changed the law to help his client Experian, the credit check company. Taylor told the reporters: “I will work within the rules, but the rules are meant to be bent sometimes.” The other peers who agreed to assist our reporters for a fee were Lord Moonie, a former defence minister, and Lord Snape, a former Labour whip.

The disclosure that peers are “for hire” to help change legislation confirms persistent rumours in Westminster that lobbyists are targeting the Lords rather than the Commons, where MPs are under greater scrutiny.

Well I damn well hope my councils – Waverley and Surrey – aren’t spending my excessive council tax on these data rapists. Experian has a “Mosaic” view of the world which involves grabbing as much data as possible and then crudely lumping people into blocks, rather like a fly looking at the world through compound eyes. The danger is they flog this to Whitehall departments and local authorities which rely on this computerised kaleidoscope to make decisions that affect people’s lives. But if they’re really going to look at people’s lives they have to accept the realities and complexities this entails, and do it in a human and responsible way. Or they might reconsider the possibility, now univerally overlooked, of not prying into people’s lives in the first place.