The Curmudgeon

YOU'LL COME FOR THE CURSES. YOU'LL STAY FOR THE MUDGEONRY.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Transparent Intelligence

This week is, as I'm sure we were all unaware, National Identity Fraud Prevention Week; and the Ministry of Punching Above Our Weight on the International Stage has celebrated the fact by regretting the loss of yet more private details of public employees. From memory sticks and laptops, they have worked their way up with diligence to losing an entire computer hard drive, and it seems entirely possible that by the time National Identity Fraud Prevention Week rolls around next year they may have achieved the disappearance of a whole network. The Ministry of Democratisation doesn't even know whether the information on the drive was encrypted; in fact, it seems more than possible that the Ministry doesn't know what "encrypted" means.

According to a spokesbeing, the loss this time is believed to comprise "the names, addresses, passport numbers, dates of birth and driving licence details of around 100,000 serving personnel across the army, navy and RAF, as well as their next-of-kin", plus data on applicants and their referees, and possibly bank details besides. The computer belongs to the Government's IT contractor, EDS (Efficient Data Services? Extended Digital Spookery? Every Detail Stolen?), whose private sector efficiency has previously benefited several prison officers. The chair of the all-party parliamentary group on identity fraud has said that "Transparency is key to ensuring that the public is aware of how its information is being handled"; but even though he is a Tory, I doubt this is quite what he had in mind.

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