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Business internet security

Home Secretary announcement on Communications Data

Big in the news yesterday was Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith’s announcement that the Government will not be creating a central facility to store details of our telephone and email communications.  It even made prime time BBC TV News. Instead the Government will pursue a strategy of getting individual Communications Providers to store their own customers’ information.

I wasn’t going to comment on this because there was so much press coverage, much of which included answering statements infrom the industry trade body ISPA which I had already had a hand in. It is however worth restating some of the points.

Firstly I am, as an individual, nervous about having all this information situated in a single central database.  It is a near certainty that at some time all of it will be compromised, either by negligence or by criminal activity. 

Secondly I think the Government is misguided if it believes that it will be able to excercise any sort of control over what happens on the internet.  Technology is changing so quickly that any system implemented by Government is going to be expensive whatever its purpose (monitoring/intercept, preventing P2P illegal downloads, preventing access to illegal websites, location tracking etc etc -) and would very quickly be out of date.  The costs of maintaining it would be a significant line item in any budget statement.

Moreover, based on track record, you can bet your bottom dollar that the time taken to implement any such a system(s) would be so long that it would probably have to be reinvented several times during its development and eventually end up in Regents Park Zoo in the White Elephant enclosure. 

PS I can see an idea for the next sci fi movie blockbuster here. It’s a cops and robbers story in cyberspace. Hollywood producers queue here 🙂

Categories
Business internet security

UKCCIS board meets

On the 10th of this month the UKCCIS board met  co-chaired by three Members of Parliament including Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.  Since its formation UKCCIS has concerned itself with putting together the structure of the organisation to take it forward and it has now announced a number of working groups.

These include “Better Education” (chaired by Niel Mclean of BECTA), “Public Information and  Awareness (Clive Michel of CEOPS) and Video Games (Brian Leonard, retired civil servant). There is also a group known as “Industry Standards” run by Amanda Jordan of Corporate Citizenship.  Apparently the name of this group is subject to change.  Don’t ask me why. 

Whilst the large committe and the high profile board chairs does send out a message undelining the importance of the activity and  its level of Government backing you do wonder about the amount of time they are spending deciding on the names of the working groups!

Previous posts on UKCCIS here.  Latest UKCCIS newsletter newsletter-no-5-march-2009.