Category: News

Evidence that the Government’s flagship ID Card programme is looking for a rationale for its own existence was given by Meg Hillier, Home Office Minister in charge of the increasingly costly development. Speaking to journalists and industry representatives in Westminster this week, Hillier said that the private sector "needs to take on a roll of provisioning a broader variety of services" based on the use of the ID Card and associated database. Our Meg compared ID cards to the Apple

Ten days ago, the Home Secretary announced that members of the public can make applications for disclosure from police records about anybody who is in contact with children.  The Home Secretary’s decision was justified by Home Office research (and not made in order to catch a headline before the General Election campaign). The scheme is going nationwide starting in August. However, after looking at the research report (see reference below), I believe that no data protection analysis or privacy impact

Just imagine. You get caught up in the general fracas as millions queue to watch Barnsley play football at the weekend. You are arrested and a DNA sample is taken which is then matched against DNA found at other crime scenes. No match is found and the police take no further action after your arrest. The Government say that these DNA personal data should be retained for six years; two Parliamentary Committees have just said that there is no evidence

Earlier this week, Gordon Brown positioned Labour’s stance on “Law and Order” in order to label those who are more reflective as being “soft” on the issue. One of his arguments related to CCTV and I have to admit, in this regard, I am a “card carrying softie”. The Prime Minister told the BBC that “There are of course some who think CCTV is ‘excessive.’ but they probably don’t have to walk home or take the night bus on their

The Information Commissioner has criticised the Government’s proposals in relation to the retention of DNA personal data as removing the protection of the First, Third, Fifth and Sixth Data Protection Principles from data subjects. Although his measured memorandum to Parliament does not couch his concerns in this way, anyone how has knowledge of how data protection works will arrive at a very stark conclusion. The Commissioner states that “he is concerned that the evidence for the 6 year retention period

Note: added by author. I have modified the text of this blog (on 28th Feb) as it became clear that biometric passports were not used in the assassination of the Hamas Officials. It follows that my text about the biometric passport was completely wrong and needs removing so that no mistake can be made. I have left the commentary on national security as this is still relevant I have put another blog (1st March) dealing with the updated passport position. Chris

Every week or so there is a press announcement from the ICO dealing with an errant data controller who has reported a data loss. The statement usually says that “so and so organisation” has lost a memory stick or laptop or whatever and has signed a public undertaking to improve matters and to behave properly in future. For example, last week the Alzheimer’s Society promised to improve data security after staff details were lost. In fact, the Society is rather

The official announcement is expected next week but the bush-telegraph is beating out the message that the custodial sentences associated with the deliberate misuse of personal data are not going to commence, as promised, in May. This is not surprising, even though there was a hastily made consultation process ending in early January. The sticking point I suspect is the application of the offence to the special purposes and in particular journalism. It has dawned on the Government that embracing legislation

  The Government has published an interim Code of Practice on the use of body scanners at airports. It fails to mention the fact that the Data Protection Act is engaged or that Privacy by Design (PdB) techniques should be used. However, many of the procedures identified in previous blogs (e.g. of 6th Jan and 9th Nov 2009) are included. So why I am a “whingeing Pom” with a Code that contains explicit sections entitled “Data Protection” and “Privacy”? I