Alan Johnson's appearance on the Today programme was confusing, as he stated
there would not be an "announcement" by Mr Blair today, and yet BBC News is
still trailing that "Tony Blair is expected to unveil the proposal in
Downing Street on Monday". I presume he meant that they were not going to
announce a project, but would instead make clear their intentions.
In my personal opinion, government ministers often sound hesitant and
uncertain when talking about Data Protection, as if they don't really
understand it. If I am right, this clearly won't help if they want their
departments to start sharing information. So, periodically, we have these
initiatives and announcements (or non-announcements, according to Mr
Johnson). We might not need so many eye-catching initiatives if the
Government really tested the limits of what the existing legislation allows
(HINT: I think it allows a lot more than they seems to).
And to be pedantic, the example which is routinely being quoted (by John
Hutton and Alan Johnson, as well as the BBC and various academics) makes no
sense. A family had to contact Government 44 times over six months regarding
the death of a loved one. The Data Protection Act would not apply, as the
person concerned had died: that was the point of the contact. The
departments may have had a duty of confidentiality, but if these were
departments who needed to know that the person had died, the department
sharing the information wouldn't breach a duty of confidence (i.e. it
presumably wasn't a secret that the person had died). Indeed, they would
have had a public interest defence if sued. Except for the fact that the
only people who would have sued them were the people who were telling them.
So they wouldn't be suing.
Tim Turner
Data Protection / FOI Officer
Legal and Property Services
Wigan Council
-----Original Message-----
From: This list is for those interested in Data Protection issues
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Simon Howarth
Sent: Mon 15 January 2007 09:42
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [data-protection] More Information Sharing
There are so many factors that make doing this an incredibly expensive and
time consuming exercise. Think about the NHS and how much that cost and how
much it's overrun. And that's just one organisation (admittedly a big one).
Simon Howarth.
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