WRITTEN ON January 24th, 2007 BY Ruth Kennedy AND STORED IN Data nitwittery, Identity

My old friend Owen (who set up govt’s first ever website when he was a bright young thing at HMT, now Director for Global Development Effectiveness at DfID) comments openly on his blog on the government’s plans to consult on its plans for data-sharing.

A national identity register that allows data sharing across government could be the technological underpinning of a huge improvement in the provision of government services. (It is important that the technology will not transform the services: it is a platform on which government processes can change). Those of us who understand the technology and care about our civil liberties should not adopt a luddite stance of opposition: we should send a clear, consistent and simple message about the safeguards we need so that we get the benefits of joined up services without the risks to our freedoms.

I propose the following five, readily understandable safeguards. The government should commit itself to each of these, or offer an extremely good reason why not:

- government data should be stored in decentralized databases that can communicate with each other on a need to know basis, not in shared data warehouses;
- citizens should have access to all data held about them by government
- citizens should be able to see a complete log of every access to their personal data by all public servants
- an independent information security ombudsman should police the systems
- there should be no identity cards and no collection of biometric data

These aren’t a million miles off Kim Cameron’s 7 Laws of Identity of course. Isn’t it good to know there ARE govt insiders who ‘gettit’?