ID cards? Government can’t be trusted with our personal information
Margaret Smith writes in The Scotsman:
We have seen only recently just how incompetent the Government is at keeping our personal information secure. Last year, HM Revenue and Customs lost computer discs containing the personal information of about 25 million people, including their bank account details and National Insurance numbers.
This is on top of the DVLA in Northern Ireland losing the personal details of 6000 people and the loss of details of three million theory test candidates.
It is estimated that the market value of these “identities” lost by HMRC was around £1.5 billion, making this a golden opportunity for fraudsters. It serves as a clear demonstration of the dangers of large databases, and the problems with securing personal details, even with “trusted” organisations.
The danger of databases increases with every increase in the amount of data they hold. A comprehensive national identity database, holding 50 pieces of personal information about every person in the UK, would be the most dangerous database of all. Yet the Government are still determined to press ahead with this scheme.
May 5th, 2008 at 23:46
I have long maintained that one of the Government aims is to break down and make worthless every form of identification that you currently hold, forcing you to take the government issued and run ID Card.
The constant and repeated release of your personal information by Government and big business is not down to ineptitude, it is by design.
The following article explains why.
http://thejournal.parker-joseph.co.uk/blog/_archives/2008/5/5/3675791.html
May 6th, 2008 at 15:23
It’s not just the Government, either; most of the UK’s banks were issued with a warning from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) last year after dumping customers’ personal details – including account numbers – in outside bins. There have been breaches of data security at hospitals, too, with unauthorised searches being carried out on computerised patients’ records by NHS staff browsing through the details of their friends and families during their lunch hours! Facebook has been criticised for its increasingly cavalier attitude to its users’ privacy.
The bizarre thing is, that instead of getting angrier and angrier about all this, people seem to be almost so desensitised by the repeated intrusions and losses that they are becoming less and less bothered by it all.
September 2nd, 2008 at 18:01
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