Communication Breakdown
Communications from the world of, er, communications. And other stuff.
Monday 21 January 2008, 5:31 PM
It wasn't just one MoD laptop...
Whoops - defence secretary Des Browne has just revealed to parliament that it's not just one MoD laptop that's been stolen - it's three.
One was taken from a car in Manchester in October 2006, and another from an army careers office in Edinburgh in 2005.
Browne: "[This was] reported at the time to the police and the local chain of command, but not to ministers. No steps were taken to inform those whose records were put at risk [because we thought, wrongly, that the data was encrypted]. Nor was the Information Commissioner informed. There is nothing to suggest that [these] earlier thefts were exploited.... The data on none of these three laptops was encrypted."
And the quote of the year thus far, from our esteemed defence sec:
"I did not say that the MoD has robust policies, systems and procedures; I said they had clear policies, systems and procedures."
So that's alright then!
"The robustness of those policies and procedures depends on them being observed," Browne continued. "I cannot give the House an explanation as to why [so much information was held on the laptop]. I don’t believe it did need to be on a laptop."
A full review of the situation, led by former police tech chief Sir Edmund Burton, will begin immediately...
Meanwhile, for those of us who see some parallel here with the proposed ID cards database, back to Mr Browne:
"There is a relevance to the protection of data clearly in relation to the ID cards scheme [but] the ID cards scheme is underpinned by biometric data which will protect people’s data from being taken or used [inappropriately]."
"I have an understanding of how important these issues are."
PreviousComments on this post
Words fail me completely. How many government ministers are going to say 'biometric data will protect people's personal details on the ID card database' before eventually someone with technical knowledge gets them to realise the simple fact that stored biometric details are not a form of protection at all, just more data waiting to be stolen.
Good point in the previous comment. Most people accessing the data will do so without our biometrics and thereafter have access to all our data including our biometric data. Ergo, our information in the ID database is not protected by our biometrics and, as stated previously, is subject to theft like any other data.
