Information Policy

British e-government fails to achieve the X-Factor

What's missing from the British scheme for one-stop government is any acknowledgement of, let alone enthusiasm for, citizens' rights to see what information the system holds on us. A wander around the e-government exhibits in Lisbon last week showed how seriously this right is taken elsewhere in Europe.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/sep/27/guardianweeklytechnologysection.comment3

Can Business Make Friends with Web 2.0?

It does seem inevitable that there is risk involved with 2.0 technologies, but everything worth doing involves risk. You can sit back and hope no one complains - or you can use 2.0 technologies as a means of tapping fresh ideas and solving problems before they result in lost business.

http://www.itbusinessedge.com/blogs/mia/?p=212

UK Blogs Shut Down After Legal Threats By Uzbek Billionaire

A candidate to become London mayor and Daily Telegraph columnist was among a number of bloggers whose sites were website was shut down following legal action by Uzbek billionaire and Arsenal shareholder Alisher Usmanov. The sites contained allegations made about Usmanov by a former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray.

http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,,2174406,00.html

Pole faces prison for "Google bombing" targetted to the Polish President

A Polish computer programmer, Marek W, might go to prison for 3 years for having created a program that linked Polish President Lech Kaczynski's website to the word "kutas" meaning penis in Polish vulgar language.

Marek, charged for insulting the President, admitted he had created a so-called "Google bomb" in order to check out his abilities. He has written a software programme for what is known as "website positioning." Typing a certain word into a search engine automatically brings forth a certain website; in this case typing "kutas" in Google triggered the President's website.

Andrzej Holdys, a regional prosecutor stated: "If somebody uses a derogatory word to libel the head of state than it's a clear insult which violates the law" considering that the case had nothing to do with the freedom of speech.

Yet, the charges were criticised by Jacek Bialas of Amnesty International in Poland who thought that the President should have filed a case against Marek as a private person if he had felt insulted.

Google stated at the beginning of 2007 that they had succeeded in defusing the impact of Google bombs by applying a scalable algorithm.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUKL1470285520070914

Winner Dutch Big Brother Awards 2007: 'You'

The Dutch Big Brother Award 2007 in the Individual category has been awarded to the Dutch citizen. He is the biggest threat to privacy according to the jury. Due to indifference - "I have nothing to hide" - and lack of interest in what happens to their personal data, citizens share responsibility for the disappearance of privacy in The Netherlands. While Time magazine praised 'You' as person of the year, the jury gives 'You' an award for your acceptance of far reaching intrusions upon your privacy.

In the Corporate category the Dutch railroad service (NS) were the winner. It has a dominant role in the implementation of a privacy intruding smart card for public transportation. The system will collect, keep and use personally identifiable data on all travel. The NS, the national rail monopoly, penalise those who wish to travel anonymously. The NS were present to receive the award. Five minutes later they received a warning from guest speaker Jacob Kohnstamm, chair of Dutch Data Protection Authority. He confirmed that their current privacy policy is not in line with the data protection legislation. He promised severe penalties if they introduce the system without changes to their policy on the use of personal data.

De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), the Dutch central bank, received the award for government institutions. DNB looked the other way when it was informed about the transfer of financial records to American authorities through SWIFT. Following the discovery of the central bank's knowledge, DNB defended itself by stating that the privacy of Dutch citizens is not one of its responsibilities.

The Electronic Child Dossier won in the Proposal category. The blind trust of authorities that problems will be solved by registration of personal data is shocking. To implement the Dossier, Youth and Families Minister Rouvoet plans on establishing a centralised database of all Dutch children. A file will be updated for every child until they reach the age of nineteen. and the file will be kept for another 15 years after that. The dataset is very broadly defined and will contain a wide variety of medical and psychosocial data, including all sorts of subjective opinions about children and their parents.

The Big Brother Awards put individuals, companies, government institutions and proposals that violate privacy in the spotlight. The jury announced the winners at the fifth Dutch Big Brother Awards ceremony on 21 September 2007 in De Balie in Amsterdam. The jury consisted of lawyer Christiaan Alberdingk Thijm, legal researcher and advisor Bart Schermer, Professor of Computer Security Bart Jacobs, Professor of Regulation & Technology Bert-Jaap Koops, Professor of Law & Information Science Corien Prins and author Karin Spaink (Chair). The Dutch Big Brother Awards are organised by Bits of Freedom.

http://www.bigbrotherawards.nl/index_uk.html