Sparks to fly

Good to hear that major UK rail electrification plans are to go ahead. This is a significant government policy change. Lots of metalwork will be required. Is this work for the Teeside steelworks?

And I wonder what will happen to the rest of the related proposals in Network Rail’s Rail Utilisation Strategy document?

BCS helps UK understand personal data guardianship principles

The British Computer Society has published a code of practice for people who work with personal data. There are quite a lot of people working with our personal data, and we know that some have been negligent in the past. Government agencies in particular sometimes seem to encourage their employees to burn CD- and DVDROMs loaded with information that they are not allowed to distribute and leave them in public places such as railway carriages; but there are lots of other insidious ways in which such information might pass from legitimate into illegitimate use.

This code digests UK law and provides guidance that to my eye is simple enough for even the most harried civil servant to understand. I hope sections like Responsibilities of the data handler will be pinned up in the offices where those CDs and DVDs are burned. The code may also be of interest to anybody who is concerned about the way that personal data is being collected and used in the UK. Its weakness may be the use of terms such as ‘responsibility’ which seem not to be understood and applied by all of us in the same way.

Less security please: IIa

So the UK Government Home Office now likes to offer ‘comfort’ to a company that intercepts network traffic for commercial gain? Steady on, Jacqui!

Via @monkchips.

Less security please: II

Well, the UK Government lumbers on, taking the very ease with which social media has come to prominence as a licence to rack up the surveillance powers it gives to the authorities on our behalf. NO2ID’s press release reports that the proposals, announced today and weighing in at a bargain recession-beating price of £12 billion, will include ‘probes’ in all datacentres allowing officials to sample whatever they choose. Slow down Jacqui!
Thanks to ORG for notification, via @tobybryans.

Barcamp Transparency in Oxford

Just a pointer to this putative event in the Summer. Its scope is, as I understand it, the full gamut of digital rights. Could be quite something.

Less security please

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/feb/19/civil-liberties-terrorism. "One thing I can tell you is that if you ask the British people they will always choose more security." Do we still think this is true?