A few days ago I joined the group “cc all your emails to Jacqui Smith day” on Facebook. I’m not David Davis, but this is the sort of web-based campaigning I love. It’s fun and witty but also relevant, and it engages a non-traditional audience in a serious political issue. In this case it’s the proposed creation of a “superdatabase” that will track all of our emails, calls, texts, internet use and whatever else the Home Office can lay its hands on. Hence the idea of one bright spark to voluntarily provide this to the home secretary on an early trial basis.
It’s not hard to see why issues like this capture the imagination of the campaigning public. ‘Central government’ and ‘big IT project’ are not two phrases that sit happily together. I’ll never forget ringing up the Child Support Agency for a constituent, and my jaw hitting the floor as they explained that they would have to write down the details by hand and take it manually to another department, as their computers had failed and they were unable to access the system from the call centre.
Unfortunately it seems Britain never got the memo. The £12.4 billion NHS scheme for centralised medical records is one of the biggest IT projects in the world, and by definition the national identity card database will be no small feat. The Department for Children, Schools and Families’ ContactPoint database modestly aims to hold a record of all the children in the UK, and the pensioners’ bus-pass scheme database alone holds a whopping 17 million names and addresses.
The threat to privacy is obvious. We’re assured that these systems are/will be safe, but it’s not too convincing. One million NHS staff will have access to the UK’s medical records, and all you need is one bad apple. In terms of the superdatabase my complaints are twofold. Firstly, that the government shouldn’t needlessly stockpile information on us without telling us clearly what the benefits will be. Secondly, that it perpetuates the futile idea that we can defeat terrorism and organised crime through technological means alone. The list of better things to spend the money on is almost endless in this case.
Of course there’s a great deal of hypocrisy when it comes to privacy. If the users of public transport in London were told that the government planned to log all of their journeys, or supermarkets their weekly grocery shops, the discontent would be massive. But offer people a few saved minutes of convenience, or a few extra pounds off their bill, and they’ll soon do it voluntarily (myself included). Perhaps that’s the lesson government needs to learn.
Until they do however, campaigners will continue to rail against the government’s technological encroachment on their lives. I hope the home secretary has a good firewall.