The information age..

Many of you will have read the stories today where the information commissioner has come out and lambasted lots of organisations (Banks, Mobile phone companies, government departments to name just a few) about data security. If you haven't the story can be read here http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=422183&in_page_id=2&ct=5 or here http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6289410.stm

What he basically says is that large organisations are not very good at safeguarding all the personal data they hold on us.

Obviously this will come as no surprise to anyone who has ever worked with IT systems. It is far easier to let someone else pop onto your computer and access something than to log off, make them log on and then log on again yourself. And this data should come as no surprise to the government since a similar report a couple of years ago pointed out that approximately 30,000 NHS staff routinely shared log on details.

Why people don't take more care is a mystery to me personally, having worked for an organisation where people would love to log on using someone else's password and send the MD an e-mail or tell customers the truth about products. Unfortunately I suppose its like checking bank statements, no one really takes any notice of it until they get caught out!

What is slightly more worrying is that the government are to shortly start compiling a national database of people's identities and you really have to ask yourself exactly how safe this database will really be???