Re: Just another example...
I know I'm quite late to the party, but could not resist this one.
The notion that this review (which by my reading of OFCOM's guidance clearly applies, for example, to The Register) will be a one time exercise shows a far more favorable view of bureaucracy than I gained in 40 years employment in a (US) federal government agency. OFCOM surely will have to increase staffing to handle the workload associated with requiring, designing, receiving, answering queries about, and evaluating the risk and risk mitigation statements. Staffing requirements will be increased further by the need to query and resolve ambiguities found during reviews as well as verifying corrective actions and hounding organizations who overlooked the requirement or who were found wanting and needed further guidance as to remediation of risk conditions. At the end there will be some residue of enforcement action required, hopefully small, but it will necessitate additional legal staffing or hiring of outside counsel.
The executives in charge of the effort will not fail to recognize that new online services will be created on a continuing basis and that existing ones (those which do not close shop) are potential backsliders and that there is a consequent need of periodic review and resubmission of reports of risk and remediation practices, and their review and followup. This, unfortunately, will require that most of the new staff be retained as permanent.
A follow on result will be growth of a private sector industry to advise and assist, for appropriate fees, those required to prove the purity of their online services to the government. This will be staffed by a combination of former Online Safety Act enforcers and trainees for future employment in enforcement. After a few years it may not be easy to differentiate between the enforcers and their prey. It will be good for employment statistics, but nearly 100% waste in terms of genuine productivity and public benefit. The sad part is that this has near nothing to do with actually protecting anyone and nearly everything to do with demonstrating the existence of formal procedures that purport to offer protection.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
