Nowun Till wonders about data protection

The continued incompetence of bureaucrats in handling data is no longer of any surprise. Once again in the UK, the government have managed to loose sensitive data held on individuals. This time, it is the records of prisoners.

On this occasion, it was a private contracting firm who have managed to loose the information. It appears that the government is happy for sensitive data to be passed on to contractors on a whim. Many of these privately contracted firms, use contract labour in administrative roles, so the security and integrity of the data is always compromised, so much for data protection.

The continued demands for Identity Cards to be carried by individuals in the UK, is not something I support, on a variety of grounds. My own perspective aside, how much faith can even the most ardent supporter have of systems which so evidently fail?

The irony on this occasion, is that the records that have been lost, are of convicted criminals and it anticipated many of these individuals will seek protection or relocation, as their names and addresses are held on the data files.

This comes hard on the heels of 25 million records detailing claimants of child benefit.

At this rate, it may be better to load all the information onto the internet and let google index it, at least that way it is likely to collated correctly, it will save millions of pounds in contract fees, as the costs will be for data input, rather than IT consultants and I have more faith that Google will be able to collate the information by individual. Who knows what everyone's record will show, if the UK government are responsible for collation.

Once again there is to be an 'enquiry' what exactly is the point of these enquiries. Nothing happens, data files are still lost and the Government continues to loose credibility. The only beneficiaries are yet more political cronies who are appointed and paid to undertake these enquiries.