25 Oct 2007

PM’s “Liberty” speech starts to tackle our deepest concerns

Maybe government’s IT strategy is not to be a subset of criminal justice after all. The Prime Minister, no less, has described the state of the foundation of trust in our e-enabled public services as far from ideal. In a speech on liberty at Westminster University today Gordon Brown offered as PM to relinquish powers just as he had in gis first days as Chancellor. Specifically he spoke about data sharing (to be reviewed), more freedom of information, biometrics and ID management (no perceptible change of course)

This is the century of information. Our ability to compete in the global economy, to protect ourselves against crime and terrorist attack, depends not just on natural wealth or on walls or fences but on our ability to use information - in industry, in our schools and universities, at our borders, in our police forces and intelligence services. And it is clear that we can use DNA to help solve crimes and we can use new powers of access to information to deny terrorists and criminals financial freedom and the ability to move across borders.

At the same time, a great prize of the information age is that by sharing information across the public sector - responsibly, transparently but also swiftly - we can now deliver personalised services for millions of people, something not dreamt of in 1945 and not possible even ten years ago. So for a pensioner, for example, this might mean dealing with issues about their pension, meals on wheels and a handrail at home together in one phone call or visit, even though the data about those services is held by different bits of the public and voluntary sectors.

But if Governments do not insist on accountability where people’s data is concerned - and are not held independently to account - then we risk losing people’s trust which is fundamental to all these issues and more.

And as what is possible changes, so the protections we afford to individuals must change, and we must respond to the need for a more secure way of establishing and protecting people’s identity; to the new opportunities to use biometrics to identify false passports or DNA to solve crime; to the need to deny terrorists and criminals financial freedom and the ability to move across borders; to the pressure to provide more personalised public services. In all these areas the challenge is both to be able to use, where appropriate, the opportunities of new technology in pursuit of security or in pursuit of justice—and simultaneously to put in place proper standards and oversight to protect liberty.

The information age has, as Tom Friedman has so well drawn out, flattened hierarchies and potentially increased the power of all citizens. So we should not fear the advent of the information age - and it should not lead us to abandon or fear for our values - but at the same time I believe we require a new and imaginative approach to accountability and to winning people’s trust in the ways in which information is held and used.

Let’s be clear: this isn’t yet ideal. We’re not in a state to export our e-government to Scandinavia, New Zealand, Canada, Holland. But it’s starting to tackle our oft-expressed and deepest concerns. Is Transformational Government about to be transformed for the better? It’s a surprise, and it fels like a good thing.

Posted by William Heath on 25/10/07 at 7:48pm
Categories · "What do we want?" · Foundation of Trust · "Transformational Government"

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25 Oct 2007

PM’s “Liberty” speech starts to tackle our deepest concerns

Ideal Government

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25 Oct 2007

PM’s “Liberty” speech starts to tackle our deepest concerns

Ideal Government

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