Happy Data Protection Day Today is a special day. No, not iPad day - it's the fourth European Data Protection Day. The European Data Protection Supervisor is trying to show the importance of privacy and data protection. The right to privacy and protection of personal data are recognised as separate and fundamental rights in the EU Charter, backed by …
That before you were given email/internet access by your employer, you were explicitly told/had to sign to say that you would only use it for work.
You are probably forbidden to use it for anything personal, so it's not a huge stretch for them to claim that they are OK monitoring them.
Will the Euro Commissioner be calling an airstrike on Downing Street as part of showing the importance of data protection and privacy.
Perhaps they could rid us of DVLA and the Idiot Passport "Service", the Police's illegal DNA database as part of a co-ordinated celebration the list goes on.
They could call it the war on data then the Americans would want to join in too...
... there was a tiny little spat, fully ignored by any news gig not IT related, that the national public transport card (``oyster card'' reinvented) was blatantly infringing privacy for no better reason than entirely avoidable bad system design. When asked about it several politicians went in full ``But I didn't know that!!!one!'' mode.
Yeah, sure. Same problem with the nation wide (``london congestion charge'' like) system intended to do road taxes. And there's the national electronic medical filing system, and the national electronic children filing system, oh and the national fingerprinting database that is now already mandatory for getting a new passport or ID card, complete with RFID chips that incidentally very recently have been further scientifically compromised. Of course none of the politicians took note.
And neither did the media.
The UK is close to unfit for living in for mere mortals, but it certainly isn't the only one doing its damnedest to screw over its citizens. Whether in the name of cost efficiency, taxes or terrorism, it's all the same to me. Clearly, privacy and data protection are dead letters and have been for some time. Thus making this a day for mourning.
"...the Information Commissioner's Office is supporting the initiative with activities to teach children, and their teachers, about the importance of privacy"
They might be better off taking on the more ambitious target of teaching business, the government, local authorities, the police and Labour think tanks the ins and outs of these interesting concepts.
Never mind that, the bloody government obviously doesn't know.
Where's the unctuous PR from the Home Office celebrating Data Protection Day and taking the oppportunity to remind us of the sterling work they're doing with ID cards to "protect our data"?
Lazy, good for nothing bastards ruining a perfectly good slagging off opportunity round here....
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