Security management Toolkit
Story: Thinktank: Debate ID cards or drop them
arguing while rome burns
Your discusssion (matt & thinkfeeldo) about what constitutes personal information, who owns it, and how much of a risk to privacy social information sites represent, is undoubtedly an important one, and of course you can discuss it to your heart's content since freedom of speech is one of our rights.
But... you'll notice you've successfully distracted the discussion which was about the UK government's ID cards scheme and turned it into a more general discussion about personal information and privacy.
I think this is one way that governments are able and allowed to get on with whatever they want. People are provoked into complaint about the government's action, but the debate rapidly moves into the more general realm. Meanwhile, with the intellectuals and activists nicely distracted by the problem of defining the issue, the government get on with their plan anyway.
Theory and more general issues are all very well, but it's also important to remain focused on the areas of concern.
In this case, I think most people are concerned about
- the fact that the government want significant numbers of items of personal information about each UK resident which they don't already have
- the fact that all the information is to be stored centrally
- the fact that past history shows they are hopelessly behind good practice on data security, and that even good practice is probably not sufficient for such a goldmine of personal information
- the fact that this provision of information is to be mandatory
- the fact that this is costing a huge amount of taxpayers money for doubtful benefit, except perhaps jobs for IT consultants
I don't think people are terribly concerned that they are placing personal information on social networking sites. Perhaps they should be. But, surely the key point here is:
It is optional to place information about yourself on social networking sites. If you are concerned about how your personal information on social networking sites might be used, you can choose not to post anything of importance. You have no such choice with the ID cards scheme.
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