Data Protection is key
But the Information Commissioner's Office is toothless.
T-mobile data protection breach
The Commissioner now wants criminal penalties. That's a good idea. But how long has it taken to come up with that recommendation? 11 years since the last Data Protection Act was passed.
Recently the ICO Scotland decided that due to a breach of privacy by a community council in the Orkneys, all 1,200 community councils in Scotland should register and pay a £35 annual fee for the privilege. This serves the purpose of what exactly? Will it stop future accidental publication of personal information by these volunteer-run bodies with tiny budgets? Not likely.
(Before anyone asks "Isn't £35 trivial?", it represents 8% of many community council's budgets!)
But it does add £42,000 to the ICO's coffers. So that's another couple of admin staff, or more likely another "good chap, of the right sort".
Frustrating. Absolutely we need strengthened Data Protection. But do we need it from an agency which takes 11 years to realise criminal penalties might be useful, and imposes absolutely pointless bureaucracy on volunteer bodies very unlikely to generate major breaches of Data Protection in the first place?
Why deal with the hard stuff when you can pick on the soft defenceless underbelly?
T-mobile data protection breach
The Commissioner now wants criminal penalties. That's a good idea. But how long has it taken to come up with that recommendation? 11 years since the last Data Protection Act was passed.
Recently the ICO Scotland decided that due to a breach of privacy by a community council in the Orkneys, all 1,200 community councils in Scotland should register and pay a £35 annual fee for the privilege. This serves the purpose of what exactly? Will it stop future accidental publication of personal information by these volunteer-run bodies with tiny budgets? Not likely.
(Before anyone asks "Isn't £35 trivial?", it represents 8% of many community council's budgets!)
But it does add £42,000 to the ICO's coffers. So that's another couple of admin staff, or more likely another "good chap, of the right sort".
Frustrating. Absolutely we need strengthened Data Protection. But do we need it from an agency which takes 11 years to realise criminal penalties might be useful, and imposes absolutely pointless bureaucracy on volunteer bodies very unlikely to generate major breaches of Data Protection in the first place?
Why deal with the hard stuff when you can pick on the soft defenceless underbelly?
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