I couldn't let the latest big news story go without comment. So, it seems the Government has lost a copy of the entire Child Benefit database, containing details of names, addresses, national insurance numbers, dates of birth, bank account details, and no doubt a whole bunch of other less important details of 25m of its citizens...and we are supposed to be re-assured that the police haven't traced any acts of fraud originating from this data.
Well pardon me for being a cynic, but how would they know? - having let loose that amount of personal data about so many of us, tracing a fraudulent attack where the criminal has such a complete set of your personal data is downright unlikely. Or maybe they are looking for someone who's details are too convincing?
There's been a lot of talk in the news about systems failure and procedures not being followed, but in reality the whole concept of putting larger and larger sets of data for the purposes of allowing Government to snoop into our private lives is the real problem.
As soon as you aggregate data sets together that were collected for different purposes, hey presto, more and more people need to have access otherwise how can they do their job. Then more and more people also want to have access for other purposes - and that's why this data becomes un-secure and unsecurable. No matter how many procedures you put in place, the issue is that more people have more access - and the more data you link up and make more widely available, the more potential there is for a major 24 carat diamond encrusted cock up - like this latest one.
This administration, having established a culture of Government spying on its citizens, now has allowed additional agencies to get access to our personal data, like the police for instance, which adds in an extra set of issues - innocent until proven guilty, but we'll still have an algorithm for sorting out those likely wrong-uns...
But the good news is that Alistair Darling still thinks ID cards are a good idea, because we will also be incorporating biometric (i.e. personal physical attribute) data into the ID card. So adding even more of our information together in one system is going to make it safer is it? Is it bollocks!
The whole concept is flawed and unacceptible, particularly when you consider that the police and security services want the ID card data tied into our vast network of CCTV cameras - then guess what, Big Brother really is watching you.
