Virgin Media has been ordered to encrypt all portable mobile devices after it was found to have breached the Data Protection Act in losing an unencrypted disc. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) gave the order…

Source: Computing

Here’s a headline that makes our last 5 years of hard slog feel more than worthwhile: “Conservatives would scrap controversial ContactPoint child database” … Can you understand why I jumped up and down yelling like an idiot when I read that headline?

Source: Action on Rights for Children

The controversial amendments to the Computer Misuse Act 1990, which were brought onto the statute book by the Police and Justice Act 2006, are finally coming into force this Wednesday 1st October 2008.

Source: Spy Blog

The shadow education secretary has said the opposition would replace the directory of all children in England with a small targeted system.

Gove told the Telegraph that ContactPoint would “increase the risk” of abuse of vulnerable children. “The government has proved that it cannot be trusted to set up large databases and cannot promise that inappropriate people would be able to access the database. It would be irresponsible to implement something that is such a danger to our children,” he said.

Source: Kable

From 30th September BT will run a trial in which a small proportion of BT Total Broadband customers will be invited to try BT Webwise. … Customers with BT Webwise available to them are subject to amended versions of the BT Total Broadband Service Terms and BT Privacy Policy.

Source: BT

A computer disk containing the names and addresses of more than 11,000 teachers has gone missing in the post. The General Teaching Council letter to teachers said it went missing after being sent from Rotherham via Parcelforce to its Birmingham office.

Source: BBC

Labour politicians at the annual conference this week admitted the party has run into “considerable problems” with major IT programmes and policy over the past 10 years.
…
Former home secretary Charles Clarke said Labour has experienced “all kinds of problems” since coming into power in 1997. “The potential of IT, whether it is individual records in the NHS or ID cards, is enormous understanding it and how to procure it is very difficult,” he said.

Source: Computer Weekly

Almost one in 10 people on Merseyside has their genetic profile stored on the national DNA database, according to information released to the Daily Post under the Freedom of Information Act. The figures show that there are more than 200,000 profiles of people in Merseyside and Cheshire – many of whom have never been convicted of any crime – on the controversial database.

Source: Liverpool Daily Post

In a shocking correspondence from DS Barry Murray at City of London Police CID the police have stated they will not be commencing with a criminal investigation of BT and Phorm Inc.’s illegal, covert trials of PageSense in 2006/2007 as they believe there was no criminal intent and the case is too complex - requiring “senior Counsel involvement” which they feel would be inappropriate use of public money.

Source: No DPI

NHS staff in England will have to get specific consent to view a patient’s Summary Care Record. Connecting for Health (CfH), the agency in charge of the NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT), has announced a change in its previous plan for the SCR to operate on an assumed consent model. In effect, patients will now have to give permission for clinicians and other healthcare workers to look at their electronic health record. Previously the details would have been available to appropriate staff unless the patient had indicated in advance that they wanted to keep it private.

Source: Kable