WRITTEN ON Thursday, March 25th, 2010 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Data nitwittery, Foundation of Trust, Identity

Ive been contacted by a school governor who doesn’t want to see their school bounced into fingerprinting the kids, and wonders what to do. They’ve prepared this draft briefing for a governor’s meeting this weekend. Looks pretty damn good to me. Is it right? Anything to add?
Reasons For Not Introducing Fingerprinting To [xyz] School
Privacy [...]

WRITTEN ON Thursday, December 10th, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Bad stuff, Data nitwittery, Identity, Official fibbing/bad stats, Pertinent Art, Political engagement, Save Time and Money, Transformational Government, We told you so...

In a speech yesterday Michael Wills (whom I dont know myself, but he’s Labour member of Parliament for Swindon North, and a Minister of State at the Ministry of Justice) called for a new, more courteous and respectful dialogue over government’s use of personal data.
IdealGovernment has wanted this for years. But – as he [...]

WRITTEN ON Thursday, September 24th, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Data nitwittery, Foundation of Trust, We told you so..., What do we want?

Wired has a nice graphic for the FBI’s God-quest. It shows several of the businesses which handed over customer records to the state:

WRITTEN ON Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Data nitwittery, Foundation of Trust, Identity, Transformational Government, What do we want?

My letter to ONS
I’ve been asked (by pacifists and others concerned that the 2011
census is managed by a US defence contractor) what are the legal
options for non-participation. I know it’s not a question you’ll
welcome, [however] I believe I fully understand the arguments about why it’s
safe and a good thing to do, and that Lockheed Martin [...]

WRITTEN ON Tuesday, September 1st, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Data nitwittery, Foundation of Trust, Identity, Transformational Government, What do we want?

This in from Scotland
Public sector organisations should avoid creating large centralised databases of personal information and keep clear audit trails of how identity data is used, under new proposals published today.
Leads into their consultation on privacy (see below).
The draft privacy principles are worth repeating:
# Proving identity or entitlement: people should only be asked for identity [...]

WRITTEN ON Friday, August 7th, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Data nitwittery, Foundation of Trust, Pertinent Art, What do we want?

In describing the NSA’s ambitious construction of a $1.5bn 1m sq ft data centre, James Bamford invokes Luis Borges’ “Library of Babel”:
..a place where the collection of information is both infinite and at the same time monstrous, where the entire world’s knowledge is stored, but not a single word understood. In this “labyrinth of letters,” [...]

WRITTEN ON Wednesday, August 5th, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Data nitwittery, Foundation of Trust, Official fibbing/bad stats, We told you so..., What do we want?

Bloody marvellous. When the database state + Experian connive to wreck your life, there’s no comeback! So rules Bill Blair (brother of the devout war-mongerer himself) in a High Court judgment, reported by El Reg:
An entrepreneur whose fledgling business was ruined by a false entry in a court database has had his claim for compensation [...]

WRITTEN ON Tuesday, August 4th, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Data nitwittery, Foundation of Trust, We told you so..., What do we want?

Nine local council staff have been sacked for illegal access to the ID database, says Computer Weekly.
* Cardiff and Glasgow councils sacked staff after they looked up celebrities’ personal records
* Tonbridge and Bromley councils sacked workers for looking up their friends
* Brent sacked [...]

WRITTEN ON Tuesday, August 4th, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Data nitwittery, Foundation of Trust, We told you so..., What do we want?

ContactPoint database could put 11 million children at risk
Every child in England could be at risk because of security failings in the Government’s controversial children’s database, experts have claimed.
By Heidi Blake
Published: 3:19PM BST 03 Aug 2009
ContactPoint is designed to help protect England’s 11 million children by giving officials a single register of their names, ages [...]

WRITTEN ON Friday, July 31st, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Data nitwittery, Foundation of Trust, Pertinent Art, What do we want?