Bigging up the database state

Sandra Bell is a name I keep hearing. She’s seemingly an independent commentator, a security rent-a-quote, who so far this week has been mostly puffing the NuLab line for a prime-time audience. I guess this isn’t exactly news, given she formerly worked for QinetiQ, a company very much part of Blair’s corporate state. A company whose thoughts on ID cards, for example, are predictable and well documented.

She featured on the BBC news on Monday night to confirm gravely that had Dhiren Barot managed to explode his dirty bomb, large areas of London would have become deserted. She must know this to be debatable, and that according to the Federation of American Scientists, “There is great danger that panic … could lead to significant casualties”, and that misinformation would be a factor in fomenting this. I guess it could all have been in the edit.

She also appeared on Simon Mayo’s 5Live show, on Monday afternoon, punting the “security benefits” of an ID card, without of course explaining precisely how we’ll be safer, or why a database is necessary. It’s a curious reading of history that concludes anything other than that, as a rule-of-thumb, states pose us far more danger than anyone else.

And another thing she said was very interesting indeed, the seeds of an idea. I paraphrase:

Major companies have a vested interest in keeping your data secure. The challenge for the National Identity Register is that there needs to be a comparable incentive for whoever runs the database to make it secure.

You can check I’m not being unfair to her by listening again here. She chose not to say “National Identity Register”, of course, as puffers for the database rarely do. I guess it sounds kinda scary.

But she makes a good point, and I can help here; “incentives” aren’t that difficult to build. We simply put the name of every MP who voted for the Identity Cards Act 2006 into a hat. Every time there’s a database security breach, we draw a name out and publish their photo, current and previous addresses, date of birth, fingerprints, NI, driving licence and passport numbers on the Web. We’ll also make available information on every body that’s ever consulted their entry on the Register, be that a cancer hospital, debt relief company, or whatever. There’s a dash of incentive. It should also bring our rulers closer to us, their people. In the sense that they’ll be living with the same shit we’ll all have to if this mental scheme goes ahead.