Stop the Government offshoring YOUR data

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Deleted member 66701

Deleted member 66701

38 Degrees is an online campaigning group where members can sign petitions and lobby MPs, vote for which campaigns to support and suggest their own campaigns. 38 degrees has been in involved in a number of high profile campaigns recently and seems to be having some success; as indicated by the amount of media coverage the group receives - http://38degrees.org.uk/index.php/pages/media-coverage/

Membership is free, although you can make donations, and each new member gets to vote on which campaigns to support. Visit the website at: http://www.38degrees.org.uk for much more information.

A new campaign has been created on the forum to highlight the forthcoming government decision to allow ‘offshoring’ of DWP and other data. Members can vote for it here and if there is enough interest it may be taken up by the group.

I'd appreciate your support.
 
off shore, on shore, who actually gives a crap, it makes no difference where they store it> the government is so damn incompetent when it comes to data security that regardless of where its stored it will get lost and or stolen so who actually cares anymore ?
 
[FnG]magnolia;19392250 said:
What does 'offshoring your data' even mean?
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At a guess I would say , personal data of UK citizens will be held / processed outside the british Isles

Not something I would want , they can barely deal with securing our data
when they have it inside the uk
 
It means your personal details - nino, address, dob, pension details, bank details and details of any benefits you've ever claimed or are currently claiming (inc Child Benefit) - basically any data the DWP currently hold on you (DWP has details for every UK citizen) will soon be accessed by offshore workers in India, increasing the likely hood that data leakage will result and provide more entry points into the data stream for hackers.

In the past, IT workers providing support for the DWP's computer system could only access this live data from a few secure UK locations.

This is the first time data owned by the UK government data has been considered for transfer to offshore locations. If they authorise DWP data to go, then Inland Revenue data, local council data, DVLA data are next in line.

UK citizens need to take control of THEIR data.
 
wildman said:
off shore, on shore, who actually gives a crap, it makes no difference where they store it> the government is so damn incompetent when it comes to data security that regardless of where its stored it will get lost and or stolen so who actually cares anymore ?
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AFAIK, if the data is not in the UK then it's not covered by the data protection act...
 
Not to mention the fact that it's assumed that most of the leaks of bank data are from off-shore call centres where staff are easily bribed to hand the stuff over.


M
 
MikeHunt79 said:
AFAIK, if the data is not in the UK then it's not covered by the data protection act...
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which means nothing anyway considering the governments track record on data security. Think about the time that sensitive personal data was transferred between departments / internally on a couple of non encrypted CDs, the number of laptops left on trains etc.

Seriously there are far more important things we should be petitioning the government about !!!
 
wildman said:
which means nothing anyway considering the governments track record on data security. Think about the time that sensitive personal data was transferred between departments / internally on a couple of non encrypted CDs, the number of laptops left on trains etc.
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What amazing logic - the government has screwed up handling data before in the past, it should be allowed to continue handling data in a haphazard manner.

wildman said:
Seriously there are far more important things we should be petitioning the government about !!!
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Not many things tbh.
 
MikeHunt79 said:
AFAIK, if the data is not in the UK then it's not covered by the data protection act...
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Not true, if your data is given to a British company they are responsible for it....whether they outsource it or not makes no difference to the level of protection they have to ensure under the DPA.

Whats more if it really is the intent to outsource info to India then it will have to be okayed by the data protection commissioner, which he will only do after he is certain the protections in place are sufficient to ensure your data is protected.

In many ways its better if it is India as this is a non-EU country and thus will be the subject of special scrutiny when permission is applied for....chances are your data in India could end up having better protection than it would in this country...as the Date Protection Commissioner only tends to step in and check protections after there is a reported breach in this country.
 
wildman said:
Seriously there are far more important things we should be petitioning the government about !!!
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The DWP use DCI, the Departmental Central Index. It's the largest non-military/security database in the country. It contains the national insurance number, full name, date of birth and last known address of everyone in the country who has ever been allocated a national insurance number. It would be Christmas come early for any ID fraudster or terrorist who could gain access to that sort of information.
 
Isn't it a little late to be worrying about this? We've just had the 2011 Census. Wasn't the information sent to an America company to be analysed?
 
I know nothing of the subject but I would be incredibly worried if what has been touched upon is true. I would not like my data stored on servers which (a generalisation, I know) may not be as secure from internal/external breaches.

If it's not covered by data protection, that would be truely scary. One of the freedoms I cherish is my privacy.
 
Actually, this doesn't concern me that much. I worked for a telco for a few years and lots of the front and back office systems were outsourced to India, and I can tell you that the Indian teams were much more aware of their data protection responsibilities than many of the UK and European based staff.

Unfortunately too many people think just because your data is being offshored then its a higher risk than it being stored/accessed in the UK. Given the track record of UK government bodies with data than this is not always the right assumption.
 
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Redz said:
The DWP use DCI, the Departmental Central Index. It's the largest non-military/security database in the country. It contains the national insurance number, full name, date of birth and last known address of everyone in the country who has ever been allocated a national insurance number. It would be Christmas come early for any ID fraudster or terrorist who could gain access to that sort of information.
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And it's successor - CIS.
 
MikeHunt79 said:
AFAIK, if the data is not in the UK then it's not covered by the data protection act...
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Im no DPA expert but as far as I know principle 8 of the DPA says that data should only be offshored if sufficient checks are in place and that the destination country has equivalent laws like the DPA.

wildman said:
which means nothing anyway considering the governments track record on data security. Think about the time that sensitive personal data was transferred between departments / internally on a couple of non encrypted CDs, the number of laptops left on trains etc.

Seriously there are far more important things we should be petitioning the government about !!!
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It annoys me when people say this, there was an encrypting policy in place that was ignored by a few lazy individuals. Since that HMRC commissioned the
Poynter Report which highlghted this and the culture in government has completely changed now around data protection and security.

Laptops will always get left on a train or in the back of cabs, in any organisation. Its how you mitigate the effect when it does happen.
 
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