"Stefek Zaba" wrote in message
...[i]
Mary Fisher wrote:

................ want to see *each* such connection evaluated on
its *merits*, balancing gains in administrative convenience against
risks to privacy.

And you really believe that will happen?

Well, good software system design practice requires it; and as far as
handling personal data's concerned, the law of the land - the Data
Protection Act - requires it too.

shamefully, two such bent public servant got a small fine and a suspended
sentence. That wasn't exactly a message about strong enforcement.

One swallow ...

positively indicates that claims of a swallow-free land are false.

Indeed. Have I ever suggested that an ID system will be perfect? Or that our
judiciary system is perfect? Nothing designed by Man is. That's largely
because it's evaluated by Man and Man has a wide variety of perceptions of
perfection.

One swallow sighting per person allows a guesstimate of the swallow
population, allowing for whether they fly about a lot or generally hide.
In the case of people who are bent, or are simply helpful on the phone
(look up 'social engineering' if you're not sure what I'm on about),
there's a lot more than just one or two working away.

I prefer to think that there are many more inefficient people than bent ones
and that the IT people can develop systems which can overcome their
inefficiencies.

The potential for social engineering is always there, with or without an ID
system. Always has been and has always been used. I merely can't understand
why the ID system could make it worse than it ever has been and is so
feared.

My opinion isn't important though, I'm not proselytising.

As pointed out above, it's not that there will be more errors
necessarily, but that the consequences of errors will be greater.

To have consequences you have to have the errors.

You're serious that your initial intuition is that the National Identity
Register's data would be error-free?

Nothing is error-free. My intuition is that those errors could be corrected
and wouldn't necessarily be used to an individual's disadvantage.

Would it shake that intuition to hear that the error rate on the Driver
Vehicle Licensing database is 30% - i.e. that a little under one in three
entries have an inaccuracy? (Would you believe me anyway?)

I have no reason to believe or disbelieve you. The information they have on
me is now accurate as far as I know, because the Agency corrected something
I pointed out was not accurate, with no argument.

And the entries will be run not only by public-spirited people, but by
contractors on minimum wage - maybe some offshour outsourced workers
too - whose immediate goals are about meeting their supervisor-set
targets on 'number of cases dealt with per hour', because that's easy to
measure; while 'accuracy', 'quality', 'right first time' are harder to
measure - so aren't in most data-entry shops.

Will they? You know that? How?

25 years' experience in the IT industry,

So you - or your colleagues - haven't been up to scratch in designing or
operating their systems?

reasonably careful attention to the trade press,

The word 'press' - even when attached to 'trade' doesn't instil confidence.
Journalists and editors of all kinds are prone to spinning.

and the odd personal experience as a consumer. One well-known
favourite-of-the-middle-clarsses

That's interesting - what's your definition of middle class?

department store has hade my name utterly mangled on its storecard for
over 10 years, and hasn't fixed it after multiple letters and calls. It
really doesn't matter enough to either of us: I get to spend there using
my account card, they get it paid off.

So if it doesn't matter what's the problem?

Do, please, take a look at www.zaba.com,

I did look, you might think it's relevant, I think it's subjective, it's
neither short nor, sorry to say this, readable.

I can't see any problem in submitting the information which is suggested
as a problem. I'll tell you all my relevant information now if you like.
And much good may it do you.

You may be happy to have your information widely available; I accept that
a chunk of mine is, too. However, I've had a *stack* of anguished emails
from police and similar people, who really want themselves OFF the
zabasearch.com database.

....

Why are they anguished?

In the US you see, there's no general data protection regime: data is
considered owned by the company you give it to for one purpose, and
they're free to sell it on to anyone else.

But you're not obliged to give data to everyone who asks for it ... surely
you only give most data to those from whom you want a service?

In the US, police officers and similar typically wear name badges on their
uniforms (rather than the traceable pseudonym approach we have in the UK,
with a constable's shoulder number). So they get kinda twitchy when a new
service makes available - for free and at a coupla clicks of the mouse -
information avout their home addresses,

Why?

If someone is afraid of retribution from someone s/he has offended then that
someone needs to live on an island, surrounded by high security fencing ...
no-one is untraceable from the determined searcher. That fact that it's made
easier by some official or unofficial agency is largely irrelevant.

Nuttin's been said about a referendum on ID cards!

Oh. In that case I've misunderstood.

Er - are you sure,100% certain, that NOTHING has been said about it?

Yes. I follow this stuff reasonably closely (does it show? ;-).

LOL!

The Home Office's first consultation was in 2002-3. The DTI Foresight
programme on Cybertrust and Cybercrime, which touched on this stuff (too
lightly, as I now think) and which I had a non-trivial role in, was in
2003-4. The draft Bill was lost at the end of the last parliamentary
session, but is to be reintroduced very early in the next one. I've
skimmed the text of the Bill itself, and read the commentaries. Nowhere in
there, or in Home Office statements, have I seen any mention of a
referendum. We tend to reach for those only for things which are of
massive constitutional importance, and (cynically) upon which the
government of the day is itself internally divided. So, we had one on
entering the European Common Market, as I believe it was called back in
the days of Heath, Wilson, and Callaghan. We're promised one on adopting
the Euro, and on the next European Constitution (unless the French and/or
Dutch avoid Tony having to put it to us at all, by voting No ahead of
ours).

I'm not going to be sidetracked by that can of worms but I take your point.
If you say that a referendum hasn't featured in the matter of ID cards I
believe you ... pick yourself up! I don't believe that a referendum would be
worth much anyway.

It's interesting that so many words have been used in this thread to
persuade one old woman - sorry, big hairy bloke with tattoos - that ID cards
would be a Bad Thing. By the time it happens (oh yes it will) I probably
shan't be around.

Make the most of me while you can :-)

Mary