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RSS feedsA House of Commons committee has demanded the government adopt a principle of
data minimisation in order to reduce the risk of Britain degenerating into a
"surveillance society".
The committee's hard-hitting report - which warns public disquiet is
growing - is aimed primarily at the Home Office and Cabinet Office and has
been given added impetus by repeated government data security scandals.
The committee called for a reassessment of the Data Protection Act with
greater powers for Information Commissioner Richard Thomas, including
"tougher penalties for negligent information-handling" within government and
the private sector..
MPs have also insisted on a guarantee there will be no "function creep" over
Identity Cards - the committee did not challenge the ID cards policy
itself - with an explicit statement that administrative information
collected and stored in connection with the National Identity Register will
not be used as a matter of routine to monitor the activities of individuals.
And there was concern in the report at the mushrooming of the National DNA
database, with a call for it to be put on a firm legislative base with a
more accessible means for individuals to challenge a decision to retain
their records and the minimisation of the data held.
That was coupled with a demand for a complete ban on patient data on
children being used for "predictive profiling" to identify future potential
criminals.
The report, which took ten months to draw up, also voice concern about the
amount of information on consumers being amassed in commercial databases
