Steve Mathieson writes in Computer Weekly about statements made to the House of Lords’ constitution committee by Richard Thomas, the information commissioner:

Thomas also told the committee of his concerns on aspects of the government’s identity card scheme. “We continue to question why so much transaction data will be collected,” he said, referring to the plan to retain in a central database an “audit trail” of every time individuals’ cards or records are accessed, adding that he was meeting with the Identity and Passport Service on 14 November to discuss secondary legislation to the Identity Cards Act.

Thomas also questioned the government’s planned database of all children, rather than just those known to be at risk, and also the existing criminal record checks on those seeking to work with children, which reveal any offence, however trivial and however long ago. But he added that parts of government are increasingly aware of threats to personal data, with the Department of Health supporting the ICO proposal for increased penalties, as this would help secure its centrally-held health records for patients in England under the Connection for Health scheme.

This entry was posted by andrew on Thursday, November 15th, 2007 at 23:45 and is filed under General, Neutral, UK News Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.