BREAKDOWN OF TRUST (re DATA SECURITY)

Hot on the heels of their excellent "2007 International Privacy Rankings", those good people at Privacy International have published figures showing a huge collapse of public trust in the Government's ability to hold our personal data securely.

Of course, of itself, this isn't particularly surprising or startling news. In the wake of the HMRC fiasco and the steady and recurring drip of revelations about the failure of individual Departments to protect our data - following on from the scandalous breach of the loss/theft of an RN laptop, this from the Ministry of Justice is merely the latest cock-up that has come to light - I am surprised that anyone has any faith whatsoever in a presumption that the Government can demonstrate even a smidgeon of competence in this field. No, what makes PI's report interesting are two associated consequences/repercussions.

First, it would be naive to assume that this breakdown of trust will confine itself to our interactions with Government. As PI's text points out, it will inevitably leech into the broader context of e-commerce generally - that is to say in both the public and private sectors (something confirmed, at least in part, by the FSA's recent Financial Risk Outlook): "At this stage it is not a simple matter to predict the potential financial impact of such a trend, but it is quite possible that the economy's growth could be inhibited if trust in data security continues to erode. The cost could easily run into billions of pounds per year". With the UK/world economy looking ever-more flaky (post N.Rock, the credit crunch, et al), the timing of this could not be worse, especially in terms of the direction of the psychology of the market (as per recent stock market volatility being a function of a lack of confidence). As Simon Davies says, this makes it a matter of considerable urgency that the Government should get a grip on the means to re-establish trust as soon as possible - although, as this piece from Rosemary Jay at out-law.com makes plain, the prospect of this looks exceedingly remote. Failure to do so could have the unintended consequence of entrenching the downturn in the economy more deeply.

This leads to my second point. I would guess that, whatever their public utterances, the various Government Ministers who have some measure of responsibility in this field are in a blind panic - if not worse, much worse - as to how to retrieve the position. In fact I have it on good authority that they have even resorted to approaching various privacy advocates with whom they have been conducting something akin to open warfare vis a vis ID cards for suggestions/advice. This would be laughable if it wasn't so serious! But their blind adherence to the Government's perceived wisdom about data management/Transformational Government/&c (all that tripe) means that their minds are closed to any sensible suggestions that may come their way. In their current mindset, all that is left to them is to shift the deck-chairs on the Great Bottler's good ship Titanic.

So, dear reader, whoop-de-do, things are going to get worse before they get better, not only in terms of data security/management but also the economy. And I reckon that, in the current climate, the best thing to do is to hold on to that distrust for a while as the best way of riding out the twin storms of Government incompetence over data security and the economic downturn.