INSIDER THIS MONTH
QUOTE, UNQUOTE
“We don’t believe anybody is making money online today in the UK” Dalton Philips, CEO of supermarket chain Morrisons, questions whether any of his competitors have cracked online grocery retail
CENSUS SENSIBILITY
THE UK’s Office for National Statistics sent out the forms for this decade’s census in March, hoping to assess precisely how the country’s population live and work.
Acknowledging that people are these days understandably sensitive about how their data is handled, the ONS gave its reassurance that the information they provide would remain confidential for 100 years.
According to the ONS website, “a microfilm version [of the census] will be retained in strict confidentiality to be released after 100 years as a public record of great interest to family historians.” But one data protection expert has warned that the census may not be that confidential. His argument illustrates how difficult it is to guarantee privacy in the UK’s regulatory climate, even with the very best intentions. Chris Pounder, director at data protection and privacy training provider Amberhawk, pointed out that the census data is in fact subject to the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.
This Act contains a clause stating that the ONS may disclose data under a number of conditions, including disclosures that are “made for the purposes
12 INFORMATIONAGE APRIL2011
of a criminal investigation”, “made in pursuance of an order of a court” or “made to an approved researcher”. “The law permits the board [governing the ONS] to disclose data if it wants,” Pounder told Information Age in March. “The current board says no data will be disclosed, but the law says that it can be. What happens when the board members change?”
Pounder describes the clause in question as a hangover from the previous government’s “disdain for personal privacy”. “It is not a clause to protect confidentiality,” he wrote on his company’s website. “It is a clause to remove that confidentiality.”
Pounder said he would like to see the ONS take the step made by the Department of Children, Schools and Families, which demanded the removal of a similar clause in 2009. “I’d like to see confidentiality guaranteed in black and white,” he said, adding that the Protection of Freedoms Bill, currently under debate by Parliament, could be used as a vehicle to do just that. “If there’s any mistrust about what the ONS might do with the census data, people will be reluctant to fill it out, and that would defeat the whole object,” Pounder remarked.
“This is quite clearly racist. I have reported it to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission in the hope for once that they might take action against something that discriminates against most British people” Conservative MP David Davies responds to a job advert from a Bristol-based IT company seeking applicants “preferably of Indian origin”
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“We want government ICT to be open: open to the people and organisations that use our services; and open to any provider – regardless of size” Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude reiterates his procurement ideals in a foreword to the government’s newly relaunched IT strategy
“Paul wasn’t afraid to go in directions counter to what everyone else thought was the right or only thing to do” Internet pioneer Vint Cerf pays tribute to Paul Baran, co-inventor of packet switching, who died in March 2011
“I just felt like, you know, I was being cheated. I was being cheated out of the money that I won” US gambler Louise Chavez after Fortune Valley Casino told her that a $43 million jackpot she won at a slot machine was the result of a ‘software malfunction’
“We’ve tested the mushroom cushioning extensively in the lab to ensure it meets our same high standards to safely protect our products during shipment” Oliver Campbell, procurement director for computer maker Dell, explains its decision to use an eco-friendly packaging material made of mushroom roots
COMING SOON IN INFORMATION AGE May 2011
• Call centre management • Social commerce • IT in manufacturing
June 2011
• The mobile executive • Is Chinaphobia justified? • The supply chain of the future
www.information-age.com
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