Posts by Doctor Syntax 40413 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2014
"They usually last about a year regardless of whether they are from the Blue, Red or Yellow parties."
The HO manages to shed those it can't house-train. Those who are house-trained are usually suspected by the PM. In Rudd's case the last didn't apply as the PM is also a house-trained Home Sec.
It's a great pity that successive DPAs haven't included an offence of misusing data protection as a convenient excuse because this is just another attempt at it.
GDPR allows data to be kept as long as it's required for its original use. Assuming that the records' original purpose was to prove legality of residence then they remain a required document for the life of the individual to whom they apply. If they were needed to prove that legality for a dependent then they're required for the life of that person too. There's anecdotal evidence that they were still being referred to which should have clarified the matter.
One aspect that's not been mentioned is whether these were statutory records. If they were not only might there have been a statutory requirement to keep them but GDPR wouldn't apply, at least not until any statutory requirement had lapsed. Perhaps this aspect should be looked into further as whoever took the decision to destroy them might have committed an offence.
"That's because UK administration is still stuck into the Doomsday Book era. In other countries were the X century ended many years ago, you need a single ID document."
I assume that you're not from these parts or are very young because a few years back when a previous Home Sec wanted to introduce ID cards it very quickly became clear that this was politically unpopular. Even the disk drives used for the pilot scheme had to be destroyed.
We don't like such things. It smacks too much of population control.
By the way, it's the Domesday Book. Same root as "domestic".
"breach of contract"
That was my thought. Possibly those who signed the contracts for the customer are reluctant to involve their legal department on the basis that if they were to look carefully they might find a brief clause around page 288 that lets IBM do this and legal will send them back with their arse in a sling for signing such a contract.
"It's going to be a mess, and there really does need to be some kind of grace period where companies can get caught and told to sort things out, but not necessarily get stung for the fine, because those fines could cause some serious damage if they're doled out to every offender from day one."
In practice regulators aren't going to be able to follow up all complaints so they'll have to make choices. Hopefully it'll be a case of chase a few particularly egregious examples first and have a warning letter system for the small fry. When they have the resources they can then follow up on the warning letters and see if they've got into compliance.
But on the wider issue of not being aware etc. companies, charities, societies etc. generally have a good idea of the accounting, statutory reporting and other rules that apply to them. When you ignore the hype this is just another of those rule sets to be incorporated into BAU. As with the other rules some organisations will fail, deliberately or otherwise; of those that fail some, as with the other rules, will get lucky and not be caught while others are penalised. It will all become the new normal.
"Guys please come down to us from your EU Olympus and explain how to implement what you've invented."
It's very simple. You do one of two things. One is you look at the rights it says data subjects should have and give the subjects those. The alternative is that you pay the fines.
If you weren't abusing the data subjects in the past option one isn't that onerous. If you find it difficult it says a lot more about the operation you run than it does about the EU being out of touch.
"While that allows EU citizens to look up EU addresses, .eu would cease to exist for the rest of the world"
Who said anything about EU-only root servers? The rest of the world would be free to use them. And why would they set themselves up as just for EU domains? If the rest of the world decided to treat a non-US server as the definitive global root then either the US follows suit or .com etc, as you put it, ceases to exist for the rest of the world.
"a proper international origination can be set up in its place."
Be very careful what you ask for. That "proper international organisation" is waiting in the wings. It's the ITU. Lots of governments would like to get their hands on control of the internet and this would be how they'd do it. An arm's length organisation like ICANN is better than that although what's needed is an arm's length organisation unlike ICANN. Or even a completely independent organisation.
"Thinking here about non-commercial special interest sites."
You're right. If this option isn't a provided for in the S/W running them either the S/W is going to need an update or that feature will need to be turned off. The BT community kit which is one option for this sort of site has a tick-box for this.
"Perhaps a smaller fine followed by a huge one if the miss the proposed timescales?"
That would have to be decided by individual regulators on a case-by-case basis. But a general concept of a moratorium would be impossible for the simple reason that if you grant it to one you'd have to grant it to all. The date has been known for years in advance. Just because they chose to ignore it it doesn't go away and they've absolutely no excuses to ask for any leeway.
"It's mostly just used by copyright cartels to sue people anyway."
I think what you're saying is that you haven't worked out how to use it for your own benefit. E.g. to check on the origins of a suspicious email? If you haven't I can assure you many of us have. It belongs with ad-blockers and Noscript as part of our everyday internet security measures.
"That would make a good argument for the organisation to be disbanded and put under the control of a global body."
That global body would be the ITU. There are a number of governments wanting to do just that with the internet. That should be enough to concentrate ICANN's mind. ICANN's mind? What a strange concept.
"You think that if they did that, the EU wouldn't be able to set up a bunch of rootservers overnight"
Well, just a single rootserver for all the domains, fragmentation wouldn't be good. And easy enough to stand one up. Just select one of the current mirrors and make that definitive. I doubt the EU itself would even need to do anything. If the European registrars haven't got together and hatched a contingency plan for this I'd be surprised. The old saying is that the internet routes round damage; ICANN is starting to look like damage.
"Print after print spews forth."
Long time ago I dropped in at a local computer shop found puzzled staff at the printer (sprocket fed - it was a long time ago). They'd sent some massive file by mistake and switched off the PC hoping to stop it only to find the printer continued for about 40 more pages. Well, printers have buffers don't they?
"BT offered back in 1997/98 time frame to fibre up the whole nation if only it could get out of the restriction of doing TV early."
Look back earlier than that to when cable franchises were handed out but BT was excluded as a matter of policy. The cable cable companies cherry-picked than and no doubt this current development will simply represent more competition in the cherry-picking industry.
"At 15 microns ... of the scale of a human hair"
Not quite that scale. A grain of hazel pollen is more or less triangular and about 25 microns per side. Hazel's fairly typical so 15 micron is about the size of a smallish pollen grain. You might see it with the naked eye as a point of light. If you wanted to see its shape you'd need a decent microscope.
But certainly bigger than what quantum physicists work on.
"I really can't understand why companies think that people with entrenched positions and loyalties, are going to be swayed by a simple advert."
The advertising industry which, let's not forget, sells nothing but advertising will undoubtedly produce results showing how many people respond positively to ads. Rice-Davies applies of course.
"I am hoping the details do get leaked, but I for one am not pinning this entirely on TSB."
What has to be pinned on TSB is that they took stock of the situation and decided they were in a position to go ahead in a single operation. And then found they weren't.
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