DATABASES. Although I said I would touch on these this week, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HRMC) seem to have scooped me by managing to lose discs containing the personal and financial details of around 25m people!
Reading the detail in the press, it beggars belief that such sensitive data should have been “lost in the post”, at a time when the country is only just starting to engage in the debates surrounding sensitivity and confidentiality of information held on government databases. The fact that it was HRMC, which, in theory, should be one of the most confidential and secure data holders, throws two things into stark relief.
First, that no matter how secure the techies say they can make electronic databases, nobody can, has or ever will figure out how to eliminate human error. The IT boys have a term for it. PICNIC. Problem In Chair Not In Computer!
Second, the mantra often chanted by the high priests of databases “if you’ve got nothing to hide, then you’ve got nothing to fear” is sounding risible. On Wednesday morning, 25m people who thought they had nothing to hide suddenly woke up to a whole lot of fear, on discovering that through no fault of their own they had become potential targets for fraud.
The fundamental issue, though, remains. No technological system will ever eradicate human error as my own recent brush with yet another government database, at the DVLA, supports.
As outlined last week, when pulled over for trying to be a wannabe Lewis Hamilton, well, perhaps Stirling Moss; according to the police database, I was one of those folk that justifies school closures and denial of dental care so that more and more can be spent on Number Plate Recognition Cameras. According to the computer, I was driving without insurance. Of course, the computer was wrong. The database was wrong.
Yet, because of someone else’s bureaucratic glitch, instead of just wasting a few hours of both my own, and the police’s time, having to produce a paper copy of my insurance certificate to prove the electronic records were wrong, for a brief moment on the hard shoulder of a distant motorway, I had nothing to hide, but just a moment’s fear. As the cops pointed out, they now have powers to confiscate vehicles without insurance.
As it turned out, it was just those few hours of added inconvenience, and, yes, I know I shouldn’t have been speeding, but what if I had stumbled across a zero tolerance policy on uninsured vehicles. Even if driven by long-haired CBEs?
We must get this debate going if only to ensure that we have effective protective protocols in place, as well as to make sure that we do not put too much information on, or faith in, the security of databases.
