Like the England football team, today’s links are looking forward to taking the summer off.

The Data Crisis rumbles on

If Alistair Darling were hoping for some respite this morning, he’ll be very disappointed. The Tories claim that a National Audit Office memo proves that senior HMRC officials were in the loop with regard to the posting of sensitive public data through a non-secure courier service. Much to the delight of the opposition, it appears that bank account details were not removed from the database because it would have been too costly to do so.

Before the new developments broke, Unity kicked off the debate here on LC with a call for calm, outlining just how difficult securing data on a large scale is: “no matter how much time, effort and resources you put into data security, your system is only ever as secure as its weakest link, which has two arms, two legs and a basic ‘operating system’ that hasn’t been substantially upgraded for a couple of hundred thousand years - people.” Rather mischievously, Unity also notes that John Redwood’s economic competitiveness review recommended that The Data Protection Act be scrapped. “Can we now take it that that idea has gone by the wayside?” Unity asks.

Another conspirator, Chris Dillow, asks if yesterday’s perfect storm at the Home Office represented the government’s own “Black Wednesday”? Dillow thinks not: ”Black Wednesday was an obvious failure of policy, albeit one with beneficial consequences. This, though, is a failure of administration; someone didn’t follow proper procedures for transferring data. Such things happen in any organization. You can’t blame the government for every stupid underling.”

Over on CiF, Gareth Crossman suggests something more sinister has been highlighted by the crisis. The sheer volume of data held by the government, Crossman argues, could be manipulated to show up behavioural anomalies, allowing the the police and the HMRC itself to pick out potential criminal activity. We should be concerned because, “It moves us away from traditional practices of relying on intelligence and evidence to indicate criminality by allowing “fishing expeditions“ where there is no suggestion that any crime has been committed.”

Cicero (Cicero’s Songs) makes an interesting point, when he outlines what he sees as the central problem in British politics: “too many kid politicians who have never had any experience outside of politics. Both Brown and Cameron and most of their respective front benches are people who have no understanding of even the first principles of management. They literally know nothing about it.” Ouch! Anticant (anticant’s arena) is equally scornful, declaring: “This, coupled with £25 billion of public money being shovelled in to shore up the reckless banking practices of Northern Rock, constitutes the writing on the wall for this increasingly tired and clueless administration.” Anticant, in the same article, also shares some thoughts on the increasing power of state, which are worth reading.

Before we move on, let’s heed a warning from Jock Coats: “Data about us is part of us. It is our right to know it’s secure, especially when we have no choice in handing it over - and such circumstances should be minimized. Whether it’s bank account details or DNA it’s an invasion of our privacy and self-ownership and every additional byte stored about us is a step towards totalitarianism.” Quite.

England are a dismal failure, but the rest of the home nations are “plucky” etc.

This morning, the nation’s football fans woke to the news that Steve “second-choice” McClaren was no longer at the helm of the England Football Team. Few tears will be shed over a man so devoid of charisma, he makes New Labour apparatchiks appear positively charming. As for the blogs, well Nich Starling (Norfolk Blogger) predicted England would lose, and Leo (Hunting for Witches) argues that the FA are ultimately at fault.

Kerron Cross agrees McClaren should walk, but states that the press have a responsibility for his failure too. Tom Freeman thinks it’s a political issue… Te heheh

Elswhere

The Spade - Tories increase lead over Liberals (Canadian politics)

Philobiblon - Feminist Carnival No 48

Obsolete - Home Office to deport failed asylum seeker back to Uzbekistan

Blairwatch - Norfolk’n'chance - PFI Nicked Our Beds

And, what with Sunny “exploring what part blogs can play in being part of a broader coalition to challenge the government” over its plans to increase the 28-days detention limit yet further, let me point your browser towards Lynne Featherstone’s, who discusses the latest high-profile voices to speak out against the plans.