The Home Office is Where the Heartbreak Is

Could personal data be the new black? I’m hardly a fashionista, but the issue does appear to be everywhere. Two contrasting snippets from last week: (1) According to Ofcom, 70 per cent of consumers are concerned about the amount of personal data being held by companies. As I’m in the data business, this was disconcerting news indeed. But, hot Horlicks in hand, I’d hardly had a chance to mull this over when (2) the Home Office chimed in with its mad plan to create a single, giant database of all UK citizens’ phone and internet records to use in its fight against crime and terrorism.

‘How long ‘til they lose that laptop?’ I thought sardonically as an interesting article by the BBC’s security correspondent Gordon Correra caught my eye. In it, Correra cites recent Human Security Brief findings which suggest that support for terrorist organisations like al-Queda could, in fact, be in decline.

The upshot of all these disparate developments? It appears that personal data over which we have little or no control has the potential to be used against all of us in countering a terror threat that could, in fact, be waning. Meanwhile, Ofcom reports that consumer concerns over identity fraud have risen by 15 per cent over the past two years. The Government’s response? Unenforceable two-year sentences for people who steal personal data.

Who’s the bigger threat - Mr Bin Laden or the thief who wants to illegally intercept my mail and steal my personal details? I’m beginning to wonder…