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Personal data protection....

I'm struggling a bit with the level of personal data I'm happy to entrust to the government.

On the one hand, I've just had my retinas scanned so that I can sail through passport queues at Heathrow. The following night I had a weird dream where I was pretending not to be me, and a policeman was scanning my eyes in a dark room. All very 1984, and a (hopefully?) unwarranted fear.

On the other hand, it seems that all of our personal medical details are about to be uploaded onto a system which isn't needed, isn't secure, and isn't being widely discussed. The following comes from a relative who knows a lot more about data protection than I do, and whose opinion I trust:

One of my responsibilities is the use to which we put personal data in the company and I am genuinely horrified by the Government's project to put everyone's medical records on computer, accessible not only by NHS staff across the country but also other government agencies.  The contrast between the duties put on commercial organisations to keep data confidential and this project, known as the Spine project, is breathtaking.

I don't think that anyone has a particular problem with name, NHS number, blood group, allergies etc being kept on a system but it is the breadth of information kept, lack of consent, and huge numbers of people who have access that particularly concern me.

There have been a number of articles published but the latest is here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,,1936473,00.html

and the concerns in this article haven't gone away:
http://society.guardian.co.uk/e-public/story/0,,1654153,00.html

If you share my concern, here is a draft letter that Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering at Cambridge University suggests you send to the Department of Health, with a copy to your GP:

The Secretary of State for Health
Richmond House
79 Whitehall Terrace
London SW1A 2NS 
And send the same letter to your GP.
It should say:
Dear Sir/ Madam
I require you not to begin processing my sensitive personal data to the proposed NHS Summary Care Record on the Spine. It is likely to cause me substantial unwarranted distress because:

1. No 'sealed envelopes' yet exist to limit access
2. No online patient system yet exists to correct errors
3. Data uploaded may include genetic, psychological or sexual information
4. It is intended to make my data available to social workers, researchers and commercial firms
5. My consent will not be asked before beginning processing
6. Adequate criminal penalties against abuse do not yet exist
7. Police and other agencies can gain access to a potentially unlimited range of information about me. There is abundant evidence that computer databases - including police, vehicle licensing and banking computers - are routinely penetrated by private investigators on behalf of clients, including media organisations

8. 250,000 smart cards have been issued granting access to the Spine
9. The department threatens to withhold appropriate medical care to objectors
10. Doctors say there is no necessity to design the Spine in this way
For these reasons, among others, I strongly fear that I am in danger of having false or damaging health information fall into the wrong hands. My privacy is being unnecessarily violated.

Yours faithfully

Since she wrote this, things appear to have got worse: see the recent entries on Ross Anderson's blog.

Have I missed the coverage on this? Or is this just not being talked about enough?

 

Bagpuss and Political Reality

  bagpuss 
  Originally uploaded by sanyasi.

Oliver Postgate put an interesting and provocative advert in the Guardian this week.

I only recognised his name because he's the guy who invented Bagpuss, the Clangers and Noggin the Nog. Not only were these favourites of mine as a child, but I remember my Mum had a professional respect for him given her own activities as a soft toy designer for BBC shows.

His ad had a simple idea. As a child he can remember the gasman banning the use of the family gas fire because it was emitting deadly carbon monoxide. They had a miserable, cold, winter. But at least they weren't dead. Now, given the problem with greenhouse gases, we need a global gasman before it's too late. He doesn't shy away from the consequences (recession, petrol coupons, misery). But at least we'll live.

His site is full of equally passionate and opinionated stuff (the piece on Political Reality is worth reading). And, incongruously, links to buy videos of Ivor the Engine.

Oh Canada (part 1)

The first of a couple of riffs on Canada after our annual top-up in August. This one is an affectionate and very funny ribbing from Jon Stewart after the arrest of suspected terrorists in Toronto.

It's been on YouTube for a while, so should still load here too.

An Inconvenient Truth

If you haven't seen the Al Gore movie about climate change, you should.

It's an unusual movie (it's mostly a filmed powerpoint presentation). But the argument that global warming is real, dangerous, and risks getting out of control is powerfully made. Scary, in fact.

I'd seen Gore give the presentation live at TED, and he's even better in person.  We also interviewed last night him for a slot on Yahoo! Answers in the UK next week.

The challenge is what to do about it. We're going to try and make our new house a bit greener as part of its rebuilding work. And there are lots of steps outlined at climatecrisis.net which we'll try and be diligent about. But it doesn't feel like much. Particularly when our household probably produces at least 25,000 pounds of carbon a year.

There's a first world war recruitment poster where a child is asking her father "What did you do in the war, Daddy?". When it relates to global warming, I'm not sure I'll be able to answer that question in twenty years time in a meaningful way. And that worries me.

UPDATE:

The UK press reviews have been strong, but have also dug into the political overtones of the movie: what if Gore had won. The double meaning of the title is striking home to some: another inconvenient truth is that the world would be a much better place if Gore had won.

Keeping Tabs on Westminster

Years ago, before MP's had email addresses, a site appeared called faxyourmp Typing a message into a webpage and pressing send ensured that a fax was sent to the appropriate MP's office.

Theyworkforyou is the successor, and is all singing and dancing. Research your MP's speeches and voting records, and contact them easily. Every democracy should have one.

Bush, Orwell and Islamic Fascism

Bush's speech about 'islamic fascists' reveals one of two things. He's either dangerously incompetent in his use of words and doesn't understand the potential consequences. Or he's picking his words with care for political purposes, presumably to sustain domestic support despite the risk of antagonising Muslim opinion. Either way, it's very worrying.

Those arrested this week must be subjected to a due process of law. And their (alleged) plot should be treated as an attempted criminal activity rather than a political statement. Bush's speech risks undermining both of these objectives.

Orwell had something to say about all of this. Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give   an appearance of solidity to pure wind. Thought can corrupt language, but language can also corrupt thought.

The only way to win in the long run is by winning over hearts and minds. And ultimately the only weapons we have are ideas and values, and the words we use to communicate them.

The Fan Mile Flags

  Germany Wins! Fan Mile Berlin 
  Originally uploaded by giz..

I spent Saturday night with 500,000 German football fans on the Fan Mile in Berlin, watching the Germany-Portugal game on big screens. Fantastic atmosphere, rounded off by dancing and flag waving in the streets from an ecstatic crowd. More photos here.

I'd only been to Berlin once before, in 1991, when Russian soldiers were still lurking in barracks and you could buy their hats on street corners. It's still a complicated place: within a couple of square miles are wonderful restaurants, glitzy corporate headquarters, the new holocaust memorial, the pristine Nazi airforce building, the confused ruins of the gestapo headquarters and the Wall, the wonderfully re-incarnated Reichstag and (on Saturday) a million happy football fans having a party.

Having grown up on a diet of Fawlty Towers and The Great Escape (and later the confusing contrast of Bach and Primo Levi), this World Cup has been brilliant. It's great that there's been enough confidence for Germany to have run out of flag material, and for cars to be proudly flying them everywhere. The atmosphere has been superb and there's no stronger sign of a healthy culture than ironic humour: I'm pretty sure that the lyrics of the Bob Marley song sung from the stage under the Brandenburg Gate were "We're German....Hope you like Germans too....We play better football than you". And finally, the brilliant re-invention of the Olympic Stadium (while seemingly retaining some of the original signage and iconography) spoke volumes.

But the best bit: the fact that everyone I know supported Germany once England were knocked out, including my son who had no other context than his admiration for their team.

It was only a few years ago that official British foreign policy was wary of re-unification. It was corrosively inappropriate then, but now just seems laughable. Particularly as I've long thought that Golding was right. To be caught up in the celebrations was therefore moving, and stirring, for all the right reasons.

Fat Cats and Paddling Pools

A couple of years ago we had a knock at the door from a bloke with some sort of water detector. He claimed to 'know' that a pipe under our drive was leaking and told us it was our legal responsibility to fix it quickly. If we didn't, the water company would, and then charge us for it. In the end we got a dodgy builder to rip up the concrete. I'm still not convinced there was ever a problem.

And now we have a hose-pipe ban. Not that our plants would notice much (we're not great gardeners). But its a shame that the kids can't enjoy a paddling pool, and running through a sprinkler, on such hot days.

Meantime the water companies are putting prices up, not fixing enough leaks, and seemingly raiding the water tables. And to cap it all, I had a letter today from the water company offering me insurance for my water pipes in case they leaked again. I doubt they're doing this at cost. If it had been accompanied with a leaflet describing their triumphs in fixing their own problems I'd have been receptive rather than peeved.

They're only doing right by shareholders, so I don't actually blame them. But the regulatory framework is pitiful.

The Thames Water ad on London's tube boasts of the 1000 miles of new pipes for London by 2010. That's four years away. How many miles did Bazalgette lay in a similar time period, with vastly inferior resources? And as for 'Lets Beat The Drought Together'.....don't get me started. If we were serious about that maybe we'd start by diverting some of the water in Kielder  to the south east.

Wow. A post that sounds like Victor Meldrew, and agrees with Jeremy Clarkson. Disconcerting.