back to article That UK law that'll share Brits' private info among govt departments? Yeah, that'll need oversight

Plans to increase the UK government’s access to citizens' private records without the public’s consent should be subject to greater oversight, head of the Information Commissioner’s Office Elizabeth Denham has told MPs. In an evidence hearing with MPs on Thursday, she was addressing the proposals made in part five of the …

  1. JohnMurray

    The "experts" on data security are missing the point....their proposals will hinder the government in its acquisition and use of peoples data...I have seen nothing from government that leads me to believe that they wish to be hindered, or have any control put upon them.

    While people seem to believe that care.data is behind them, this would seem to be yet another attempt, by government, to bypass any control upon them.

    Please do not forget, before care.data got "shelved", highly personal data from hospitals had already been dispersed to the private sector...

    I have seen NO interest from government to have their data acquisition controlled, just attempt after attempt to get law on the books by the back-door..

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      While people seem to believe that care.data is behind them, this would seem to be yet another attempt, by government, to bypass any control upon them.

      Whilst that's true, I'd just like to explain how scope creep and poor drafting take a good intention and make it a really bad idea. The item about sharing data with energy suppliers is not because energy suppliers want all your personal data (collectively the industry don't have much of a clue about data as it is), but because the government decided many years ago that the energy companies should be legally obliged to help "vulnerable" customers with giveaways of insulation or new boilers. Problem is that these definitions of vulnerable include health conditions, income or benefits data which we don't know. So the idea is that sufficient data is shared to tell energy companies to go round to Mrs Smith at 4 Bog Street, and install something. The obvious measure of funding through general taxation, and making local authorities responsible for identifying the vulnerable, and for installing whatever measures government think are appropriate has been deliberately overlooked to keep the problem of "fuel poverty" an energy supplier problem, and avoid facing up to the fact that it is government policy that has put up our energy bills by about 40% to pay for solar power, windmills, smart meters (yay!) and other eco-trinkets.

      And all because of those sequential messes and poor decisions, now your privacy can be even further eroded.

  2. Slx

    Don't worry they'll fix that by just deleting that awkward data protection legislation that has been in the way of such efficiencies for decades thanks to those meddlesome Eurocrats.

    You'll now have the freedom to allow the paranoid security state led by Big Sister to monitor your every move.

    Orwell was right on most things. He just got the date a couple of decades wrong and, given the era he was writing in and the gender biases of the time, didn't predict it could be Big Sister.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Brave New World

  4. Andy The Hat Silver badge

    Sharing ...

    "When it talks of 'disclosing' personal data to gas and electricity suppliers ..."

    Sure enough sharing may be to benefit the disadvantaged ... or it may be so that it's easier for HM Government to sell data to third parties. As private companies, why just gas and electricity? Why not water and telecoms? What about flood insurance? Then there's care home information for the over 50s, house price data for the rich, car insurance, pet insurance, replacement windows, roofers, builders ...

    Data is worth money, I can't believe the thieving scumbags don't intend to sell it.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So they can give it to Google

    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/04/google-deepmind-access-healthcare-data-patients

  6. alain williams Silver badge

    Controlling who can see it will not be effective

    say you are allowed to prevent data going to some places; then the response will be simple: we don't empty your dustbins (or whatever) until you give it to us.

    A far better approach would be to let individuals:

    * see what data is being held on them & the ability to fix errors

    * see who has seen what data on them (organisation name & employee name)

    Then when data is being shared too far, some sort of public campaign might happen; unless you know you cannot do this.

    Assumption: that orgs will be honest in what they do!

    1. phuzz Silver badge
      Joke

      Re: Controlling who can see it will not be effective

      "Assumption: that orgs will be honest in what they do!"

      You missed the icon off your post mate >>>>>>>>>>>>>>

  7. Doctor_Wibble
    Gimp

    But we bare our souls online already

    ...apparently. Pun that one any way you like...

    That's the usual argument though, isn't it? Because apparently everybody tells the world all their secrets by posting them on twitbook and therefore why not our trusted lords and masters in the government - according to people who can't comprehend a world without these things.

    I'm glad there are decently high-profile and respected people in the relevant fields who understand that just because lots of people do something, doesn't make it clever and doesn't mean everybody else should be forced to join in. There's even a slim chance someone might listen to them.

    I have had to deal with incorrect propagated data and after numerous 're-corrections' by The Machine (not Harold's one) I came to an arrangement with the affected person at the other end of the tuttle/buttle hilarity and we both now in addition have carefully-selected typos to stop it happening again. But this was not a victory, it is a camouflaged defeat.

  8. NonSSL-Login
    Thumb Down

    Bureaucrats

    Currently those in fuel poverty can apply and get for a kickback from their energy supplier.

    As to if they check with the government if a person is on benefits or not I don't know but shirley it would be better to check this way than hand all the personal details of the country to multinational energy suppliers.

    Once data gets in to a third parties hand it becomes less secure. They also often outsource the checking and dealing with the data to some other company who was the lowest bidder for doing the job, for which are even less prepared to deal with securing such data.

    After a breach or a news story that the data of the whole country was stolen (beside given to the NSA in a nicely wrapped present with a box) the government will say they passed it on to the energy supplies who have security ISO numbers so it was ok. We will then here there was nothing in place to stop the energy supplier giving it to a third party without security standards expected and people will get on their high horse and demand change after the horse has bolted.

    'Stupidity is doing the same thing time and time again expecting a different result'.

    I put time and effort in to keep my data private away from google and big corporations so I do not want it just given away defeating all that work. If they are going to do that I may just as well start using store loyalty cards, signing up to websites I see on the side of products and all that sort of stuff. At least they won't have the extra personal details the government plans to share and likely sell.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Bureaucrats

      As to if they check with the government if a person is on benefits or not I don't know but shirley it would be better to check this way than hand all the personal details of the country to multinational energy suppliers.

      That's not the purpose. Government don't intend or need to hand over your tax and income date, your benefits list, your inside leg measurement and all the crap they collect on the census to energy companies, they intend to tell the energy companies that specific households are qualified for certain types of welfare that the energy companies have to dish out.

      That becomes personal information in that there's a name and an address, and a statement that the named individual meets one of a range of qualifying criteria. It needn't and shouldn't say which criteria, nor by how much, but its still sensitive personal information.

      However, why is this fairly high level data less secure in the hands of an energy company than government? You don't think that GCHQ and the NSA have had unfettered access for some years to the complete UK welfare and taxation systems, along with that of the banks, payments processors, travel databases and Google and Microsoft's vast slurp of private data? Why would they need some piffly subset of imprecise data that (even for a specific known suspect) would only tell them that One-eyed Abdul qualifies under the BEIS rules for free loft insulation of fibreglass roll, topping up from 100mm to 275mm, fitted under the Energy Company Obligation by a registered installer, and compliant with OFGEM's list of allowable primary measures, and subject to sample auditing for the quality of the work?

      1. Dave 15

        Re: Bureaucrats

        There is no need to share any of this with the energy companies. Get rid of the stupid ideas in the first place.

        If we had single flat tax and single flat benefit then we would all have more money (less collection overhead), those on benefit could (and would have to) move to where it is cheaper to live (housing is cheaper etc) and then would likely escape fuel poverty.

        In addition renationlise the whole energy, rail, water etc etc industries which are essential, any over manning, any over charging and profit making will directly benefit the treasury allowing the national debt/tax to be reduced... again benefiting all.

        Frankly the civil service and government seem to spend a hell of a lot of time coming up with glorious new ways to justify giving non-jobs to people by expanding departments for no good reason.

        Take a look at the apparent need for hundreds of thousands more civil servants to deal with brexit... nothing to deal with here at all. Its simple, sign the article 50. Tell all the nations of the EU that they are welcome to set up a trade deal directly with us, if they hide behind the EU and stop importing our goods or imposing tariffs then our immediate reaction will be to stop ALL imports of anything in any form from their country (i.e. no spares for your bmw, no french wine, no irish butter etc etc etc). If the Americans can trade with the EU without freedom of movement then so can we... or else. Nothing more is actually needed.

        Simplicity, thats what is needed. Dont forget that we ran an empire right around the entire world with less people than the dept of education needs to fail to teach our kids to add up!

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Brilliant idea (if you can keep off this register)

    So a quick scan of the bill under Chapter 5 Part 1 on Public Service Delivery gives me...

    (8)The first condition is that the objective has as its purpose—

    (a)the improvement or targeting of a public service provided to

    individuals or households, or

    (b)the facilitation of the provision of a benefit (whether or not financial) to

    individuals or households.

    (9)The second condition is that the objective has as its purpose the improvement

    of the well-being of individuals or households.

    (10)The reference in subsection (9) to the well-being of individuals or households

    includes—

    (a)their physical and mental health and emotional well-being,

    (b)the contribution made by them to society, and

    (c)their social and economic well-being.

    Translating this from "NewSpeak", it probably means that when your profile is sold by our fictional character "Benny", the "dedicated" worker in the office with a partial crack habit (partial meaning that his wages do not allow him to partake in his hobby as often as he'd like), he now can peruse your data to establish your profile so see if he and his associates can liberate your "unwanted" items from your household (based on social and economic well-being and contribution made to society), combine that tasty piece of financial information with the physical/mental/emotional well-being would give, overall, an excellent list of prime properties in which to get their filthy scheming hands on and raid everything that isn't bolted down.

    I may be over exaggerating but I haven't got to the part of the document about the proposed controls and trace-ability on the data, nor do I expect to.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    They're rerunning "Yes, Minister" on radio 4 extra at the moment

    The episode today related shennigans about getting safeguards for access to data in a new national database which government would be keeping on it's citizens.

    It's amazing how current the storylines still are.

  11. scrubber
    Big Brother

    New World (dis)Order

    If you have nothing to hide sell, you have nothing to fear.

    1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

      Re: New World (dis)Order

      Sell?

      If you have nothing worth taking, more like.

      And you'd still have reasons to be afraid - they might not be interested for the time being, but that might change any minute.

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