By Steve Ranger, 15 January 2007 16:10
NEWS
Plans to share more information across the public sector are not a step towards a 'Big Brother' state, the government has insisted.
It wants to share more information between departments and agencies, and claims this will also make life easier for the citizens because they won't have to repeatedly give the same information to different organisations.
silicon.com Public Sector
Get the latest public sector news straight to your inbox. Sign up for the PS newsletter today!
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions John Hutton told Radio 4's Today programme that because government agencies don't usually share information they don't provide a "joined-up service" for the public.
Hutton added: "We are not proposing a new database - we are not proposing new IT systems here."
And he insisted: "There isn't going to be a computer whirring away in the background spying on everyone."
But not everyone is convinced. Liberal Democrat leader Menzies Campbell said: "Blair's Britain now has the most intrusive government in our history," while Phil Booth, national co-ordinator of anti-ID cards group No2ID, said the government has such a poor track-record on protecting personal information and linking computer systems that "to imagine this will increase efficiency is ludicrous".
Before Christmas the government ditched plans for a single mega-database to hold all ID cards information. It said it made sense for security reasons to store the data across three different systems.
Comments
There are 4 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
Whether it’s data sharing or a massive database is largely immaterial.
The real questions are:
a) who can access which personal for what purposes;
b) whether the government will seek the consent of individuals to share or use their personal data for wider specified purposes than those for which it was originally supplied;
c) what oversight and audit arrangements will be in place to confirm that personal data is only used for the purposes for which the individual has given consent and by public servants who have a verifiable need to view specific information.
There is no need for compulsion, nor for unfettered access by public bodies to any personal data held by government. Ultimately, the government must persuade individuals that the benefits of data sharing, subject to appropriate controls and oversight, outweigh the potential risks to their privacy,
The DVLA set a good example of how this might work: when a person applies for a driving license, they are asked to give consent for the DVLA to confirm their personal details on the passport database.
2. Karen Challinor
...And he insisted: "There isn't going to be a computer whirring away in the background spying on everyone."...
so it won't, under any circumstances, ever be used like the DVLA system, which it will contain, where advertising is used to scare motorists whom accidentally forget to pay their road tax, by telling them "the computer won't forget" and "there's nowhere to hide"
or the benefits system, which it will also contain, used to catch benefit frauds and cheats with the phrase "there's no if's or buts"
Then there's the TV license computer that doesn't seem to understand people who don't own a television
and yes I know these are aimed at deliberate evaders, dodgers and scroungers but they scare the cr*p out of me and I've always paid my tv license, road tax and I don't claim benefit
what if some clerk in an office towards the end of the day accidentally makes a mistake or a fly lands in a machine like in the movie "Brazil" and I get branded as a criminal because of a single letter transposition ?
and before people start saying I'm paranoid I have to say I was never like this before Tony and his cronies started talking about taking all my personal and biometric information, putting them in computer systems and having a big machine monitor my life while they all go off for a slap up feed and a big holiday ... sorry that should have been "concentrate on more serious issues that people like me are not competent to judge", my apologies a simple mistake, such as a clerk could make towards the end of a day
3. Simon
Tosh ! What John Hutton says is not the governments intention is EXACTLY what they are trying to build - an all knowing, all-seeing system that gives the government the ability to see what anyone is doing and weed out what they decide on the day are 'undesirable' people. We should be afraid, very afraid !
Of course they'll dress it up by the benefits - but this is a one way road, once we step off down the road of the big brother database, there'll be no going back. Don't forget what Hitler did - he was elected, brought in measures not too dissimilar to some of the current proposals, and then when he had the tools to suppress dissent ... well we know what the result was.
I'm not neccessarily saying that any of the current lot are as bad as Hitler, but once the tools are in place, we would have no defence in the future should someone go that way. And there are a few of the current lot that I would NOT trust in that respect !
Unfortunately, I am in John Huttons constituency and so I am effectively unrepresented. Being a minister he almost always votes along party lines and so I know that my MP will vote the party way irrespective of what I (or any other member of his constituency) might say to him.
4. Steve Gedney
Sir,
It was with some trepidation that I read the article detailing the government’s proposal to create a central database (‘Data-sharing plan 'isn't Big Brother', 15th January). I can’t count the number of stories I read last year of failed public sector IT projects. How refreshing it would be to read an article in two years time celebrating the successful implementation of this ambitious project.
Such good news is only likely to be realised, however, if the government (as with all organisations in both the public and private sectors) finally recognises the importance of thorough planning when it comes to software development. Software development should be viewed as a managed business process, which can be successfully regulated like any other project within the business.
I very much hope that the necessary plans and procedures are put into place now, to ensure that this project is a success and proves that software development can add value to an organisation.
Steve Gedney
MD, Borland UK