http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... ayers-data

Only "borderline insane"?

Anyway, the article goes on to draw paralleled with care.data - which went well...

I was gonna post this but never got round to it. Essentially it's exactly the same as care.data - sell your details "anonymised" to third parties for pennies. Without your consent.

And, of the care.data model is to be followed, the “anonymised” data will leave enough breadcrumbs to trace them back to a real person.

The model is irrelevant. The point is that, for the vast majority of the population, enough disparate pieces of personal data exist on the internet such that if it could all be conglomerated together, there are enough inter-related items to produce a single consistent profile.

You can't add to that set of available data and improve that situation. Any more data you add only makes the job of tieing it all together easier. It's not that extra info can be disseminated provided it's in a particular way, because there is no 'right' way any more. Computers are too powerful and the data is too pervasive. The only way to reduce the impact is to stop the flow of data out from organisations and the only way to do that is stop them sharing it at all.

No organisation should be able to give personal data is has about you to any other organisation. Not for money, not for free. Not for research, not for profit. Not ever.

Jon

I'm just thinking the Lib Dems have been remarkably quiet on these data issues. I hope the press try to get statements from Alexander and Cable.

It's yet another attempt by the coalition to sell off everything we've got to the private sector on the cheap (this sort of data is ridiculously valuable to those in the know, but for friends... ), screw the taxpayer...