Privacy International has produced a report announcing that Britain is Europe’s worst performer when it comes to protecting the privacy of its population. Britain only narrowly beat communist China, who censor the internet and recently announced it would no longer tolerate user generated content on sites like YouTube.
Privacy and the infringement of civil liberties are popular subjects at JK and have featured in blogs discussing CCTV, data sharing and tracking devices. While discussing personal data and the creation of centralised national databases, one of my colleagues touched upon the argument that if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear.
But recent data loss fiascos have shown that potential invasion of privacy is a danger to us all. Even if we ignore the dubious ways in which our own government has misused personal information, it is obvious that it’s incapable of protecting us from the threat of fraudsters and cyber-criminals.
Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg has recently produced figures showing that 2007 was the worst ever year for personal privacy. The loss of half the population’s personal information has led many people to believe that the ID card scheme is now unlikely to become a reality.
Despite these events and recent research showing that 6 out of 10 UK citizens do not trust the Government with personal data, Gordon Brown, in his first major interview of 2008, reiterated his unwavering support for the scheme. While there are many conspiracy theories regarding the malevolent plans for our personal information, it has now been proved that incompetence is just as big a threat. This is all a far cry from Labour's optimistic plans for eGovernment and broadband Britain.
Much of the information which would be required for the ID card scheme and the national identity register would be of a sensitive nature, and every time an individual interacts with any part of the ID infrastructure, an audit trail would be left behind which could be updated to the register. Information could cover education and employment data (including any trade union affiliations,) as well as medical records (including any conditions or diseases such as allergies or HIV).
Before considering the consequences individuals might face should this information be stolen or innocently misplaced, it is worth remembering Gordon Brown has openly admitted that, just as the DVLA sell driver’s information to clampers, he would be prepared to sell our information to private enterprises.
As the capabilities of technology continue to progress, it is imperative that people start to speak out in defence of their privacy. The idea of a centralised national identity register is remarkably similar to systems used in regimes like communist East Germany. Despite not having the technology we have now, these systems were still ruthlessly efficient in exerting control over the population.
I think that before ideas of this nature are even considered, it is essential that the procedural errors leading to the recent data loss incidents need to be examined and rectified. In addition, it needs to be explained why so much private information is actually required and what it is to be used for, rather than simply using ambiguous threats of terrorists and illegal immigrants to justify it.
A centralised national database wouldn't necessarily increase the threat of identity loss - in fact it would reduce the need for government offices to post discs to each other or other such unsecure methods of data transfer, so maybe it would improve the situation. Most of the debate on ID cards assumes that the government would be collecting reams of new information about everyone to put on a new database but the reality is they already hold everyone's information such as employment and medical records, just in disparate databases between several different agencies eg HMRC, NHS, DVLA, passport office.
Posted by: Claudia | 14 January 2008 at 14:39