Straw grants ICO half its wish list More than a year after the government lost the discs containing the UK's entire child benefit database Jack Straw is offering to increase the funding and powers of the Information Commissioner's Office. The ICO wanted powers to investigate any organisation it suspected of failing to follow data protection principles. Straw is …
They have already shown that they will stick behind big business against the consumer. Whats the point? BT illegally intercepted their customer's communications, and ICO says they are in the clear. If they arent willing to do anything about information privacy and security, why should we give them more money?
"Meanwhile thieves have made off with......"
In other words: "Now that the penalty for losing this sort of shit is being nailed publicly to the cross, we've found that a lot of stuff has been, er, 'stolen'.....".
Next week's news. The Home Office announces that a selection of CDs containing a load of sensitive data "went on fire by accident like".
Mines the one with the picture of Jimmy Hill in the pocket.
In fairness to Jack Straw (never thought I'd say those words), I'm more concerned with the public sector's treatment of my data than the private's.
Of course, that leads to the obvious question about how far up the ICO would be allow to probe, for instance, Wacky Jacqui's shit-hole (of an ID-card scheme).
Mine's the one with the blatant sexual in-your-end-doh!
FOR FUCKS SAKE! IT'S 'LOSE' WHEN AN ITEM IS MISPLACED AND NOT TO BE FOUND. 'LOOSE' IS THE OPPOSITE OF TIGHT.
Sorry for the cruise control, foaming-at-the-mouth, rabidness there but that mistake is becoming so fucking common these days that I'm seriously despairing at the literary competence of el regs readers.
The ICO can now investigate public bodies handling of data.
So all the public bodies need to do is contract out to private firms and if it goes missing the ICO is powerless as the public body did not lose it. Go ask firm X, they'll say, oh that's right you can't can you and proceed to smile smugly.
What genius good old Jack thinks he has.
Am I sounding a little cynical here?
"@4 destop computers? " "FOR FUCKS SAKE" "el regs readers"
FFS, if you're going go all teachey, avoid typos and cure your RGA (reverse greengrocer's apostrophe) syndrome. Also, "this mistake" might have been slightly more appropriate than "that mistake". But I'm just saying.
Hey, don't push, I'm leaving already
Statistics etc blah blah blah.
Losing kit is bad, unless of course you lose your horrible laptop and get a shiny new one. But losing kit does not mean that any data has been lost.
However, anecdotal evidence would suggest that there is a correlation between the amount of sensitive data on board a piece of kit, and the likelihood that some idiot will leave it on a train/bus/backseat of taxi or in a pub loo.
In an organisation that I am quite familiar with, I know of a case that went like this:
- External party comes in to do some work
- CIO says 'no 3rd party laptops, no removable media'. Good man.
- External party takes data on a USB stick. Loses it. Mucho sensitive data on it. Fesses up.
- CEO 'appoints' CIO as data security officer, tries to sack him for security breach
- CIO has a fit and threatens legal action
- External contractor slapped across the wrist with wet bus ticket
- 'Reorganisation' a month or two later sees CIO role downgraded
So CIO was hoisted on a large petard as a scapegoat precisely because the organisation had failed to take data security seriously - until there was a problem.
but by then, said horse has bolted.
I'd like to see a study on how many cases are reported compared to how many there really are...
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
