Letters to the editor

Make company data protection personal

2009-12-09T12:31:50+00:00

Perhaps this is a way to improve data security (Those who flout the DPA must be punished).

The law should be changed to require all computer systems to store full personal details of all line managers – up to the CEO – who are responsible for the security of those computer systems. This data should be in an easily accessible file on the C: drive and as a standard table within all databases.

This could include full contact details, personal address, bank account details and perhaps information on their private life.

There should be no special security around this information other than what is applied to the system as a whole. This might motivate organisations to focus on system security.

I am tempted to suggest that the data include their passwords as well, but I suspect many of them already have these written on Post-it notes on their screens.

Andy Roberts

Drop the accent

2009-12-09T12:30:05+00:00

Shân Hughes’ letter (Accentuating errors) started me thinking.

Perhaps we’re looking at this the wrong way. I think birth certificates should have restrictions on the forename entry box to ensure parents can only name their children appropriately, with no punctuation marks, only the first letter in upper case and so on.

This would surely eliminate the problem of web site entry fields. It would also be the first step in preparing our children for the digital age that is upon us.

David Forrest

When data goes AWOL

2009-12-09T12:28:31+00:00

Brett Raynes’ letter raises a good point (Those who flout the DPA must be punished). However, he is approaching the problem in the wrong way.

In today’s secure Wi-Fi world, with reasonable access and download speeds, the question is surely why the data was ever allowed to be held on a portable device in the first place, when it could easily have been held more securely at the council’s datacentre, with authorised users accessing records remotely and bulk processing of queries being executed at the server.

Further, we all want the data we access to be up to date, but this cannot be assured when what we are seeing has been downloaded to a portable device.

Mike Stranks

Running up big costs

2009-12-09T12:26:55+00:00

Walking or running is cheap (IT profession has most inactive workers).

The government is in enough debt without subsidising gym membership.

Rob

Wealth not health

2009-12-09T12:25:04+00:00

With reference to Fat Free Fitness founder Rich Leigh’s comments about gym membership subsidies for small businesses (IT profession has most inactive workers says survey), I raised this issue with my MP a year or two ago.

He forwarded my query to the Treasury, whose spokeswoman said that subsidising gym membership would only go towards squash club fees for well-off middle-class businessmen, who would pay those fees anyway. When asked where small business employees fit into the idea of getting gym discounts, the response given was “work for a bigger company”.

Despite public hand-wringing about the obesity epidemic, the government’s primary concern will always be the cost, not the health of the nation.

Mark Gillis

Data remember

2009-12-09T12:21:57+00:00

The government’s initiative to make non-private data available to the public (Deal puts e-government on the map) is great news, but just having the data available is not enough.

Tim Berners-Lee has missed out an important step in making this information relevant and useful by not considering how to improve our understanding of the identifiers being used to link the data.

Using identifiers will make it easier to find useful information by bringing together data about a particular topic and ensuring that the process of making all the material public is not done in a disjointed fashion.

However, to make all this knowledge as useable as possible, information about each identifier needs to be published and aggregated. Facts, figures and ideas can only be linked properly if everyone knows the right identifiers to use.

Berners-Lee needs to ensure that the identifier for each piece of data is accessible. It is only by being able to correctly use these identifiers that the full potential of the government’s data will be unlocked.

Kal Ahmed, Networked Planet

ID card system contains a sinister register

2009-11-30T18:00:30+00:00

Obviously “Voter with a long memory” (http://letters.computing.co.uk) has a little trouble with reality. The ID card offered by the current government is technically unlikely to work if issued on a large scale. The Home Office’s own scientists have said that.

The concept implies that the government decides on our identity and can control how and when we are identified and to whom. The system contains a sinister register that will record, forever, every occasion on which a card is used. Access to the register by government officials without the individual’s knowledge or consent is allowed.

This massive centralised system is based on 1970s thinking about databases and is unnecessary in today’s world where it is possible for anyone to prove their identity, or any other fact about themselves, by using PKI and trusted authorities.

The government has refused to listen to the experts and launched a massive – and probably illegal by EU law – invasion of personal privacy. The Tories and the Lib Dems have said they want no part of it. You don’t have to agree with them on other matters to see that they are right on this one.

Simon Evans

Highland sting

2009-11-30T17:58:51+00:00

We keep hearing about the need to bring broadband to rural areas, but from our perspective as a Highlands-based computer business, precious little is being done. We are still awaiting copper-based internet, and are on our second satellite-based system which, like the first, is very poor compared with even the most basic terrestrial broadband.

A small tax on broadband (Broadband tax comes under fire) is nothing compared to what we have had to pay – four times the cost of the slowest terrestrial broadband for much less than half the performance, often less than even dial-up performance – for the past 10 years and no doubt for the future as well.

Even the government admits this tax will only result in up to 99 per cent of the population benefiting from fibre. This means some 600,000 people will still be denied even basic broadband by 2014.

The truth is that Digital Britain really means Digital Urban Britain.

The Scottish Highlands will not go away, even if they can be safely ignored most of the time.

Roland Pullen, Tree of Life Computers

Have pity for the city

2009-11-30T17:56:41+00:00

Yet more taxation (Queen’s speech highlights digital priorities).

I live in a city and pay a fortune to BT for broadband that limps along at about 2Mbit/s. It is claimed that my line will not support faster speeds. This is partly due to the rotten aluminium wiring installed in my street in the 1960s. What am I paying BT for?

It irritates me to see the firm gushing about speeds “up to 20Mbit/s”, let alone advertising misleading headline costs based on discounts given for the first three months.

We will never progress into the digital age while dinosaurs such as BT are allowed to get away with such practices.

Chris G

growing need for IT

2009-11-30T17:52:15+00:00

The Digital Economy bill sets a strong precedent for the future by recognising the impact that technology can have on the long-term prosperity of this country (Queen’s speech highlights digital priorities).

However, it is disappointing that further measures have not been put in place to specifically encourage the growth of the UK’s technology industry.

Britain has long possessed all the necessary attributes to become a global force in the technology sector and, if these are correctly harnessed, technology could become one of the industries to lead Britain out of recession.

By recommending fiscal incentives for high-tech companies and focusing on the next generation of IT skills, the Digital Economy bill could have laid the necessary foundations for tech to become a catalyst for UK plc’s economic recovery.

David Stephenson, Micro Focus