Why the ID Database won't be secure

To those of you out there who think the ID Database will be a good thing I would like to point you at this story...

A GLASGOW council worker was sacked and another resigned after they were caught snooping into the core database of the Government's Identity Card scheme.

The two Glasgow staff were caught snooping on people in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Customer Information Systems (CIS) database, which includes among its 85 million records the personal details about everyone in the UK, and which the Identity and Passport Service plans to use as the foundation of the national ID scheme.

"A member of staff tried to access stuff about famous figures," said a spokesman for Glasgow City Council. He said the DWP alerted the council about the breach. He refused to name the celebrity or say how the council dealt with the matter.

Now let's just make one thing clear to people. If the government builds a great big super database your data will NOT be SECURE.

And no amount of magic fairy-dust technology will change this.

The greatest threat to all data security are the people who have access to it. If you can't trust them you're screwed.

And there is no point in the state building a super database unless a lot of its employees have access to it. Otherwise how will it help them control us?

So the question you must ask yourself is, how many perverts and weirdos does the state employ?

Sweet dreams...

Guest blog post by RobW

Death of a Colleague

As I surfed last night I came across the doctor missing from Edinburgh and at first didnt register the name, thought yeah another one bites the dust and then I see the same thing on our doctors' website and then review the webpage . I make the connection from seeing the photo again and reading more deeply. He's been missing for a week in the lovely balmy temperatures and they found a body an hour and half walk from his car and have called the search off. He leaves three children and a distraught wife and grieving brothers.
It shouldn't have to happen, I'm saddened that someone I went to medical school with and who is the same age as I am is dead. Yet his NHS trust is refuting the idea that he worked 84 hours a week and not taking any responsibility at all.

All doctors who work 7 nights on shift work 84 hours for that week. Yet the public as seen from the Have your say page on the BBC news website feel we get paid wonderfully and cant understand the current jobs crisis.

Many of us have exit strategies in place, for some it is retirement others it is fleeing this awful place that Britain has become in the last ten years.

My thoughts today rest with his family, friends many of whom I know and his grateful patients and many many work colleagues.