[Reader-list] Can citizens really trust a government with their personal data?

[Taha Mehmood]

Dear all

When a national identity card project goes for a national roll out, citizens
are asked to share their personal information. I see nothing wrong in such
an exercise. A welfare state needs to know who are the most deserving
recipients of aid before releasing necessary funds.

What I find unresolved in this process is the desire for a central database,
because we do not know how competent nation states are in taking care of
information entrusted with them. In this regard, please, consider a news
story below, about a man called, Chris Ogle finding US troops data on a MP3
in a thrift shop in Oklahoma. Now the experts are obviously blaming, 'just
slack administrative procedures' for this leak.

We can obviously dismiss this story as an 'isolated incident' but we can
also ask, can we really trust a government with our personal data? 'Isolated
incident' makes for good rhetoric perhaps but can we  allow an infringement
of trust with no mechanism of redress? If the data belonging to the
personnel of a highly efficient organization like the US army is not safe,
then with how much of confidence can we claim that personal, private data
belonging to a billion Indians will be safely entered and coded and
protected?

Regards

Taha




http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7853213.stm

*A New Zealand man says he found confidential data about US military
personnel on an MP3 player he bought from a thrift shop in Oklahoma.*

Chris Ogle, 29, said: "The more I look at it, the more I see and the less I
think I should be looking."

The files included names and telephone numbers of American soldiers,
according to reports by TV New Zealand.

One expert says the files are unlikely to compromise security, as most of
them are from 2005.

Some included a warning that the release of its contents is "prohibited by
federal law".

*Embarrassment*

As well as personal details of US soldiers, such as social security numbers,
the files also listed pregnant female troops and apparent mission briefings
in Afghanistan.

Peter Cozens, director of the Centre for Strategic Studies, New Zealand,
said the information should not be in the public domain but it did not
appear likely to affect US national security, according to the Associated
Press news agency.

"This is just slack administrative procedures which are indeed a cause of
embarrassment," he said.

Mr Ogle, from Whangarei, said he would hand the files to US officials if
asked.

There was no comment from the US Embassy in New Zealand.
Similar breaches occurred in Afghanistan in 2006, when US investigators
reportedly bought back stolen flash drives, that contained sensitive
military data, from shops outside a main US base in Bagram, according to AP.