As regular readers will know, today was my Parliamentary debate on the privatised surveillance society: privacy and the internet.
I had two articles on this issue published: in the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph. You can read them HERE and HERE.
In response to my request for greater checks and balances on the activities of advanced internet companies, the Communications Minister, Ed Vaizey announced a number of measures:
i) ask businesses to sign up to a refreshed and more concise version of the Information Commissioner's 'Code of Conduct'. In essence, this would be the first step towards a proper Internet Bill of Rights for the UK;
ii) bring forward new proposals, so that before anything like Street View happens again, private companies such as Google will have to agree strict and formal ground-rules in advance with the Information Commissioner;
iii) contribute to the new EU privacy directive, with the aim of strengthening privacy laws, and giving more powers to the Information Commissioner to protect ordinary peopleiv) meet with ISPs and internet companies, such as Google and Facebook, to propose a new mediation service.
This would give ordinary people whose privacy has been breached a new means of redress.
Although this does not deal with privacy infringements in the past, such as Street View, it will give us greater protection in the future.
However, I still believe - as I said in my speech - there needs to be an Independent Inquiry to look at this properly. It should decide what rights individuals should have against the activities of internet companies. There must also be an examination as to the role of the Information Commissioner under existing legislation. At present the Information Commission is more Sir Humphrey than a Shark with teeth.
Robert you were excellent in the debate. Keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteWhat we need is for the EU human right to PRIVACY respected & the data protection act 1998 to be ENFORCED! The Information commissioner’s office the data regulator has taken about THREE YEARS to write a few letters to a council who for the past 8 YEARS have been unlawfully disclosing personal names, current home addresses, signatures, email addresses, phone numbers some ex directory etc.
ReplyDeleteYet with just a name address & signature, I could conceivably access peoples’ bank accounts.
I have compiled a HUGE data blunder dossier with data obtained from the New Forest District Council website. The council have been told they have broken the law & to stop uploading peoples confidential personal data. But the ICO are reluctant to interdict. They have been writing the council letters for THREE years, yet the council continues to disclose data with immunity or so it appears!
The ICO has NOT even served an enforcement notice. If they had, the council would by law have to remove all personal / sensitive data from their website & stop putting anymore on the publically accessible website. Sadly the ICO are not really proactive to interdict in cases like this of repeated personal data disclosures & repeated violations of the data protection act 1998!
It is about time the ICO is scrapped & replaced with an effective proactive & prompt authority that cracks down hard on any personal data breach. Crippling fines are a deterrent, but only if used. You will be amazed how many companies & councils would secure the confidential data properly!