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Sep

UK's Data Protection Act does not implement European law properly

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The UK's Data Protection Act (DPA) does not implement European law properly, according to the European Commission which is investigating problems in the UK's implementation of 11 of the Data Protection Directive's articles, almost a third of the entire directive.

Using freedom of information legislation, OUT-LAW.COM has learned that 11 articles are the subject of two commission letters to the UK Government, even though the Government has refused to provide these details to Parliament.

In June 2005, Labour MP Harry Cohen asked the Government exactly what problems the commission had identified when it said that the DPA was a defective implementation of the directive.

Parliamentary undersecretary Bridget Prentice refused to answer.

“We currently have no plans to disclose the detail of those discussions as the formal Commission investigation process is still taking place,” she said. “If the Government were to disclose the information requested, it would prejudice the negotiating process between the UK and the Commission and so prejudice UK interests”.

The articles of the directive which the commission claims have not been implemented properly are articles 2, 3, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 22, 23, 25 and 28 – just under a third of the directive's 34 articles.

These articles relate to:

the
definitions used in the Directive (e.g. the meaning of personal data);
the
scope of the Directive's application to manual files;
the
conditions when sensitive personal data can be processed;
the
fair processing notices give to individuals;
the
rights granted to data subjects;
the
application of exemptions from these rights;
the
ability of individuals to seek a remedy when there is a breach;
the
liability of organisations for breaches of data protection law;
the
transfer of personal data outside European Union;
and
the powers of the Information Commissioner.

Full story on The Register.

Has the UK Government deliberately watered down the Data Protection Act in order to build the massive big brother databases, and allowed them to collect DNA with virtually no recourse such as in the David Mery case.

Couple this with the destruction of the OGC gateway reviews on ID Cards, NIR and NPfIT in defiance of the Information Commissioners ruling, obviously hiding something about those databases that it does not want the public to know, then we begin to suspect that Government are not acting in the public interest, but is instead building a one party authoritarian state under the guise of lip service to the EU.

NuLab – Destroying Britain from the inside out.

NHS patient data sold on eBay

IanPJ Enabling ID Fraud Add you comment

An NHS trust is investigating how one of its hard drives containing confidential information was sold online.

The Dudley Group of Hospitals NHS Trust is trying to find out how one of its computers full of confidential medical information was sold on eBay.

Disposal of the trust's computers is carried out under contract to Siemens Medical Solutions, as part of a PFI agreement. Computer Disposals has a subcontract with Siemens to dispose of obsolete IT. All hard drives that leave the trust via this route should undergo data wiping which meets the government's standard of being overwritten three times.

The confidential data was discovered by researchers working on forensic data recovery methods at Glamorgan University. The university's research is sponsored by BT, which purchases 250 hard drives a year from places such as eBay and regional computer fairs. It then passes these to the university which attempts to recover data.

The research is designed to raise awareness in organisations of how easy it is to recover sensitive data when poor data-wiping processes are used.

The trust said that, together with Siemens, it has carried out an internal investigation into the incident and developed recommendations to prevent data from being left on unwanted hard drives.

“Unfortunately an investigation into how this particular hard drive has been openly purchased has not been able to identify the route at this stage, and the trust is continuing with its efforts to identify the source, including the possibility of theft,” the trust said in a statement to GC News on Friday.
(source)

The NHS and Siemens are therefore ENABLERS of ID fraud.

When such sensitive data is concerned, there is only one way of disposing of it securely. SMASH THE DISK.

When will government learn that our data is more valuable than the few pounds it is likely to get back from eBay. What will the policy be for disposal of DNA database systems, or the NIR systems?? When will your ID Card and Passport details be sold on eBay ?

NuLab – Destroying Britain from the inside out.

After the Unions, Brown begins purges of old Labour.

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After the attempts by Brown to remove voting rights between Unions and the Labour Government, the NuLab machine is now beginning the purges that have long been expected in order to get rid of the old Labour guard.

Veteran left-wing MP Bob Wareing is to quit Labour after being deselected from his seat by what he denounced as the “New Labour Mafia”.

Mr Wareing was deselected by local members in Liverpool West Derby on Sunday after 24 years as its MP, in favour of ex-minister Stephen Twigg, who will inherit a Labour majority of more than 15,000 in his new constituency..

He accused members of the government of being involved in a concerted effort to have him replaced, and said he would stand as an independent at the next election.

He said: “My deselection…in a seriously flawed reselection process brings to an end a concerted effort to remove me by the New Labour Mafia. The Party leadership (under Blair and Brown) have regarded me as a thorn in their side as I rebelled against their betrayal of the basic principles of the Labour Party.

He added: “Anti-Labour policies, such as privatisation, tuition and top-up fees for students and the stock transfer of council houses (with the threat that no repairs would be carried out if they remained under council control) forced tenants to concede to New Labour's wishes, Worst of all has been the disaster of the invasion of Iraq, an illegal war in defiance of the United Nations. I was proud to march, with nearly two million others, against that policy.”

He said the Labour Party was very different to the one he had been proud to be a member of for 60 years.

Mr Twigg achieved a 17% swing from the Tories to defeat the then-defence secretary Michael Portillo in Enfield Southgate, but despite increasing his majority in 2001 and going on to become school standards minister, he lost the seat back to the Tories in 2005.
(source)

We can expect further deselections in the coming months as more of the NuLab career politicians demand seats on the gravy train.

NuLab – Destroying Britain from the inside out.