Last edited by RedFox; 23rd-November-2007 at 05:03 PM. Reason: formatting error
I have always been against them, on account of the ID card being stolen and copied by crims.
Presumably there would be a photo on. The data could be encrypted though. Even then, the crims would manage to aquire a decoding machine.
The govt. planned to force us to carry them at all times - don't want to get mugged for my ID card.
Not sure if I posted though, so you'll have to believe me.
It's a no brainer.
A radio interviewee pointed out that this 23 year old 'junior official' (clerk, surely? ed.) could well have been in the position of being paid £50,000 for the downloaded data by unsavoury persons.
We'd never even have known about that because if he was selling the information it's unlikely he would have told his bosses.
So yes, it should have been impossible for him to download the data, and he certainly shouldn't have had a DVD/CD writer in his desktop; only an authorised person should be able to do that.
(Memo to self: must check Data Protection Act to see what sections were breached...)
a USB memory stick is quite sufficient to hold all the relevant data, or a tiny plug in wireless device could broadcast it outside. Only trusted employees should have access to PC's containing vital data. Security has become even more of a nightmare due to technological advances.
It's not a major technological challenge to, you know, buy secure PCs that don't have CD / DVD writers, USB ports, etc. In fact, that's what happens in a lot of companies and government departments now. How difficult would that have been?
And a proper company - that is, one with an actual database administrator, say one with more than about 2 employees - might even go so far as to have users belonging to defined groups with specific access permissions.
Christ, even I could set that level of security up for my company. The fact that even these muppet-level security measures weren't in place for a system holding the personal data about, let's remember, 25 million people, is beyond farcical.
We don't need cyber-terrorists hacking into our systems - we've got New Labour to do their work for them. ID cards? I wouldn't trust them with my Tesco clubcard.
And I'm still waiting for an ID card defender to put their head above the parapet...
Yep. We were clearing out the stationary cupboard for an office move the other week and I found some pretty sensitive personnel files about a senior member of staff at the bottom of a pile of paper (fortunately in time to hide it and return to them without anyone else knowing). No idea how it got in there!
For anyone fooled by dear Darling's "ah, but there'll be biometrics so it couldn't happen" defence of ID cards, read this article by Ben Goldacre. Shows you how useless fingerprint security is, as an example.
Awww I've just had a lovely letter this morning from HMRC apologising for losing my data and telling me not to worry about it.
Now I'm worried.
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