A day for quiet reflection

Yesterday was European Data Protection Day; this blog held a one day's silence as a gesture of respect to the millions of pieces of personal and sensitive data that have been lost in the last year.Across the continent people gathered in their hundreds of thousands, coming together in their workplaces, in their communities, in the fields, in the hills and in the streets, to mark this most solemn and momentous day of data.I need not tell you what an emotional day it was for us all.Some of us may have brushed aside manly tears as we reflected on the 182 per cent rise in card cloning and phishing in the second quarter of 2008 compared with the same period in 2007; others may have stifled their sobs over the $2.8bn cost of phishing attacks; still more wept -openly and without shame - for the 44 per cent of small businesses that have fallen victims to identity fraud through phishing, internet scams and data theft.But all were united in their fervent hope that 2009 finally marks the year when the UK's government pulls its bloody finger out and puts a stop to departments' haemorrhaging of our personal and sensitive data.Fat chance...

A load of nonce-sense

If the first law of marketing is that sex sells, the first rule of tabloid journalism is that paedos shift papers.Things may have quietened down a bit since the 2000 moral panic, when the News of the World whipped up a hysterical mob of mouth-breathing simpletons into an orgy of vigilante violence, but tabloid editors still know that their barely-literate readers love a good “hate” almost as much as a new Lizzy Duke sovereign ring.So it’s no surprise to see yet another paedo story in today’s Sun, with the baffling headline: “Internet pervert charges rap”. In a nutshell, the story concerns comments made by the chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre which "slammed" (criticised) Internet Services Providers (ISPs) for charging child abuse investigators to access their data.The way that the Sun spins it, cynical ISPs are making an easy profit from the authorities hunting down Britain's biggest nonces. Naturally, the Sun is sympathetic to CEOP’s chief executive, Jim Gamble, who believes that ISPs should waive these charges in the public interest.Balance has never been the Sun’s strongest suit. If it were, they would have pointed out that under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) ISPs are entitled to charge the police for reasonable costs for data retrieval and that in the last four years, the Government has paid ISPs and telcos £19m for its agencies’ growing demands for access to communications data. This information was obviously deemed by the Sun to be of no interest to its audience, even to its more intellectual readers who don’t need to use their index fingers to read a newspaper.Interestingly, CEOP’s share of this £19m amounts to around £170,000 – less than one per cent of the total paid to ISPs. With CEOP having made just shy of 10,000 requests, the average cost of each request works out at less than £18.Why, then, is the Sun focused purely on paedophile investigators, when all regular police forces and government agencies are charged, fairly and under UK law, for using ISPs’ time and resources?As Malcolm Hutty, policy chief at the London Internet Exchange (Linx) points out, "Regular police forces investigate extremely serious crimes using communications data, including murder, rape and kidnapping, and they believe they are better served by cost recovery. We don't believe that the situation becomes different for child abuse cases merely because they are investigated by a specialist national unit."But here we come to the second law of tabloid journalism: never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

Effect of terrorist attacks on India Property Market

The recent terrorist carnage in Mumbai has pushed India into the spotlight with many questioning the horror and condemning those responsible. In the aftermath of the attacks, concerns have been raised about the country’s financial and commercial economy with attention drawn to the deceleration of the Indian property market.India’s property market was previously thought to be a ‘crunch-free haven’, being seemingly unaffected by the recession. Merrill Lynch had even predicted a 700% increase in property prices from 2005 – 2015, yet evidence has now shown a damaging slow down in home sales.The immediate response to the attacks with property advisors revealing a massive loss of pace in enquiries and sales of properties in many areas of India. Concerns are rife that because British and Americans were targeted in the attacks, there has been a vast loss of interest in property entrepreneurs from these countries. There are also worries of more attacks resulting in property demand decreasing further.The terrorist attacks are not solely the reason the markets in India have been falling back. Recent months have already seen a great deal of pressure on India’s property trade with predictions of land prices falling by a quarter in the coming year. The recent attacks have magnified the flailing market but the real causes being the uneven supply and demand in property with there being more property than people are actually willing to buy. With the recession diminishing confidence in buying property, interest rate upsurges together with the rapid rise in home prices help to slow sales of properties. There is also the ‘wait-and-watch’ effect with many potential investors waiting for prices to drop so they can take full advantage so there is hope for a pick-up sometime soon.In the short-term there has been an effect as a result of the attacks but it is important to remember that the property market was already sluggish before the attacks.But bargain hunting anyone?

The DNA of the UK Constitution

The European Union really makes my blood boil. If they’re not telling us what shape our bananas should be, they’re ordering our grocers to sell potatoes by the metre. Now, in the latest piece of politically correct European legislation, convicted paedophiles will be allowed to keep a pale 8 year old boy in their cells, after the European Court of Justice ruled that this was a fundamental “Yuman Rite”.* You couldn’t make it up.† We’re literally going to hell in a handcart.Or so you’d believe if you had access to no other media than the Daily Mail. But even readers of what Alan Partridge described as “arguably the best newspaper in the world” surely can’t complain about a recent judgement from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) which ruled that it is illegal to retain DNA profiles and fingerprints of people who have never been convicted of a crime.The case was brought by two men from Sheffield whose DNA was taken after they were arrested on two separate and unrelated charges; one case involving alleged harassment was dropped, while the other man was acquitted of attempted robbery. Yet in spite of their innocence, these two men’s DNA and prints are still on a national criminal database, along with 570,000 other profiles of innocent individuals (some sources, notably today’s Guardian, say 850,000).In reaction to the ruling the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, said that while she was “disappointed” (shouldn’t that be “disappointing”? Ed.), the existing law would remain in place “while we carefully consider the judgement.”Well Jacqui, consider this. Presumption of innocence is an inseparable part of this country’s DNA, stretching back at least to Magna Carta. The principle of ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat (that the burden of proof rests on whom asserts and not on whom denies, for those of you with a state education) is a fundamental foundation of our entire legal system which, in spite of frequent criticisms, remains one of the best in the world.Ms Smith argues that DNA and fingerprinting is vital in the fight against crime, and claims that it provides the police with more than 3,500 matches a month. But Jacqui, we’re going to let you into a little secret. You know that statue of Justice on top of the Old Bailey? What’s that she’s holding in her left hand? That’s right – scales! And do you know what that represents, Jacqui?Yes, it’s balance! And that’s what justice is all about – balance.Taking the Home Secretary’s comments at face value, we should take the prints and DNA of every British child at birth; then we’d have a nice big database of everyone’s details. But that wouldn’t play very well with the public, would it, so how about taking young people’s DNA the moment they turn 16 – what could be objectionable about that?Merely the fact that it criminalises the innocent and robs us of a fundamental principle of our centuries-old legal system.The EU can often be a ponderous, calciferous and obtuse organisation, but we should applaud it when it makes the right decisions. Well done.* Probably.† Well, actually you could.

Are you Fur Real?

The use of real fur in fashion has, in recent years, sparked huge protest from various extremist groups, People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in particular. But the presence of fur in the fashion world can be contested in numerous ways.Animal Rights extremists argue that there is no need for designers to use real fur in today’s world when there are such realistic and “ethically correct” imitation furs that can be used.This is the argument hurled at Blackglama’s new fur campaign headed by Liz Hurley. She has been on the receiving end of some harsh criticism from PETA claiming that “her wardrobe is now as dead as her career”.With groups such as PETA on the war path you may ask why designers still insist on using real fur when it is so blatantly going to attract such extreme protest with the splashing of red paint, wine, or any other “ethical” substances over any fur garments worn in public.Maybe these extreme animal rights activists are demonstrating a valid argument and the existence of such realistic fur imitations has made the need for real fur redundant, making the use of real fur in fashion ethically unacceptable.However, when considering the debate surrounding fur, we must go back to our caveman roots and remember that in those early days, real fur was used for survival to keep warm. There were no ethical issues in those simpler times. So if the cavemen of our primitive world thought it natural to use the animal’s fur, why do we have a problem with it now? And if Liz Hurley wishes to regress to those prehistoric times then who are we, or PETA, to judge?But perhaps it’s all merely a publicity stunt nowadays with phrases such as “there is no such thing as bad publicity” being coined in the minds of many of those who are hungry for exposure. With well known celebrities such as Natalie Imbruglia heading PETA’s own anti-fur campaign, we must consider the obvious publicity that these situations induce. So we must ask, is this all a PR stunt for the models and the fashion industry that animal rights activists are playing into? Or are groups such as PETA just as aware of the benefit of such publicity as everyone else?

Kangaroo's Hopping Onto our Screens in the New Year

It would seem that despite the current financial climate the whole IPTV/Video on Demand market is bubbling along nicely.Recent reports suggest that the joint TV on demand venture between ITV, Channel 4 and the Beeb will be hitting our screens early 2009.According to the Guardian"It is understood that Project Kangaroo will go into alpha mode in December with the uploading of programming content and aims to launch trials of the service early next year.The trials, or beta phase, will see a limited number of users allowed to access the service in a strictly closed test of the service's usability and functionality."Should we be asking Santa for an ADSL 2+ net connection or will the project be killed off by the Competition Commission before it even gets going?

Two cheers for the NHS

Of all the categories of sensitive data, it is information about our health and our medical histories that is perhaps the most personal and private.For example, you wouldn’t want a stranger – or worse, a colleague – knowing that you’re being prescribed Anusol Ultra for your chalfonts, would you? Nor would you want your boss to know about the methadone prescription, or your mother to know about your latest suicide attempt. Unless, of course, it was a cry for help.But even if it contains nothing as dramatic as an overdose, we tend to guard our medical history very jealously.So it may come as a shock to learn that not only has the NHS amassed a central database of around one billion confidential records of patient visits to hospital, it is routinely sending some of these records to an academic organisation outside the NHS. These records contain personally identifiable information, such as postcodes and NHS numbers, as well as medical information, including diagnoses and any treatment given.Now, a certain breed of querulous privacy advocate will start whining the moment they hear the words “giant database” in conjunction with “confidential data”. Not so data grub: we understand that there are often the very best reasons for aggregating personal data, as long as stringent measures are in place to ensure absolute confidentiality.In this case, the aim is to use this vast resource of information to improve the NHS’s service and treatment outcomes, which I think we can agree is a Good Thing.The other good news is that both the NHS and the academic organisation that uses this data, the inanely-titled Dr Foster Unit, seem to have taken decent precautions to protect patients. All data is held on encrypted discs and is sent by secure courier, which is a pretty good start. Then, at the Dr Foster Unit, the data is kept in secure offices, on disc-less workstations which have no link to the Internet.While this compares pretty favourably with the cavalier approach towards data security shown by other public sector bodies, among them the Ministry of Justice, the MoD and the Department for Work and Pensions, it’s certainly far from perfect.Our main gripe is that personally identifiable information (PII) is contained within the data that’s being sent out of the NHS. While PII such as postcodes may be vital for making distinctions between different areas of a town or the country, surely the NHS should secure people’s informed consent if they are to use their data in this way?So, two cheers for the NHS and the Dr Foster Unit for at least trying to apply best practice to the use of sensitive data. But, as we asked at the beginning, why should anyone other than one’s doctor be able to look at your confidential medical history, even if it’s just some academic at Imperial College?Now, if they anonymised this PII irreversibly, ensuring that records cannot be traced to an individual, while at the same time remaining useful to the bean counters (all perfectly possible with today’s technology), well – that would be just what the doctor ordered.