I have found all discussions relating to the Vehicle Licensing website,
geo-positioning & BT's SMS strange new "service" really interesting,
mainly because I wear two hats in my post namely DP and FOI. And it is
perhaps because of my roots being firmly enbedded in the public sector
that I find myself defending the Vehicle Licensing site, who are in my
opinion, only trying to serve the public as best they can with the
limited resources available to them, whilst being very suspicious of the
private sector outfits, whose aims are based on profit, not the greater
good.
But I can also sympathise with Martin Hoskins' views about only trying
to provide the public with the services they say they want, or that they
do not even know they want yet. Who could have ever predicted just how
la-la the whole world appears to be on SMS technology (personally I hate
it). But I compare it to the double-standard the general public applied
to the gutter press for "hounding" Princess Diana, in that if the public
hadn't had an endless thirst for photos and news of her, then the
paparazzi wouldn't have been chasing her around in the first place.
We (the general public) demand ever increasing amounts of information to
be made available to us cheaply and conveniently. And on the other, we
are obsessed with protecting our own privacy. As a DP Officer I
sympathise with that view, but as an FOI Officer I want to be able to
deal with as many requests as possible by pro-actively publishing
information on the Publication Scheme, rather than dealing with requests
individually. We want to be able to find our kids, but don't want our
bosses to find us! To a greater or lesser extent, most of us are both
Jekyll and Hyde; poacher and gamekeeper!
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