Author: info@amberhawk.com

[Note added 17/3/2017: The proposal is no longer going ahead: See Question S5W-07384 of 21/02/2017 "Ministers have listened carefully to the arguments"   …and do not intend to take forward the proposal.] I thought the idea of a centralised, national population register was well and truly dead? Well the Holyrood SNP Government wants to resurrect a Scottish version. The Scottish Government’s plans are outlined in a document entitled “Consultation on proposed amendments to the National Health Service Central Register (Scotland) Regulations 2006”. The

Xmas has come and to get you in the festive mood, I present a link to 232 pages of gripping holiday reading. Forget all those TV repeats over the holiday period; in the forthcoming break why not snuggle down with the latest DAPIX version of the Data Protection Regulation which identifies the current thinking of Member States. I have made two preliminary conclusions: • I think that the Data Protection Regulation will not be agreed until the end of 2015 (if that); this

For the last two years I've been working with colleagues in the Cabinet Office's Privacy and Consumer Advisory Group to develop privacy principles for the government's online identity assurance programme. This is now close to launch, and got some front-page attention in The Times on Monday. Here is the just-published letter we sent to the newspaper with more details. The Government Digital Service has also published a response. Sir, Today’s Times (4/11/2014) front-page story contains an error: “Virtual ID for

All through the New Labour Surveillance decade (and through to the current Snowdon revelations), Parliament and public have been deliberately kept in the dark as to why the UK’s Data Protection Act (DPA) is not a proper implementation of Directive 95/45/EC. What is wrong with this implementation? It’s an official secret. However, the MoJ have just told me (see references) that the deficiencies are apparently so great that the European Commission is still thinking of infraction proceedings. The above, of

Yesterday, the Intelligence and Security Committee held a round-table on privacy and national security; in particular in relation to the Snowdon revelations and possible changes to the law. So this is a good excuse to publish my written evidence to the Committee. It is on the lines that the Data Protection Act should apply to the processing of personal data by the national security agencies. Historically the national security function was made exempt from the Data Protection Act 1984 probably

I suspect the Government is going to ditch the Law Commission recommendations on data sharing; this is because it wants a quick implementation of its own extensive data sharing proposals. In short, general data sharing powers are now on the political agenda again. This is the third time in a decade that Government has tried to obtain data sharing powers that apply in circumstances unconnected with the usual suspects (e.g. data sharing in relation to crime, national security and law