Personal information and the business of running a Country.

[Didihno]

If you have a PPS number, it should have a file with certain details that every govt dept should be forced to use.
Name, address, phone numbers, emplyment details, medical card welfare the whole shebang.
It should be up to YOU to have your file updated.
Any leak of information to a third party should be a prosecutable offence, and indeed one should be able to sue the govt for such leaks.
Personal data is like currency, and such a data repository should be like a bank.
Census forms should be used to gather this data and their filling out should be compulsory.
Fears of a surveilance state? Don't worry, its already firmly in place.
They may as well make it official but more importantly, make it transparent and truthful.
Its the lies and the unhanded secrecy that gets me, and that is the reason I will not be 'volunteering' the data that they should already know, but that data that they should not be entitled to ask for.

[bob3367]

What I don't really understand is how so many people get hysterical about the Government wanting to use details that the Government issued (PPS number etc.), and yet people are providing a hell of a lot more information about themselves and their lives to Google and Facebook day in day out.

Facebook and Google etc. are going to have far more info on people in the future than any Government will - their 'Likes', their family, their friends, their habits, what they look like, who they are, where they socialise, how they socialise, their internet usage, their IPs etc.,

And all of it will have been given voluntarily by the users and at no cost to the companies.

And No doubt a value put on this value and held in the balance sheet.

People also walk around with mobile phones totally trackable, using the Atm, same effect.

[Spanner Island]

And No doubt a value put on this value and held in the balance sheet.

People also walk around with mobile phones totally trackable, using the Atm, same effect.

Yeah - and if people are accessing Facebook or Google as they wander around with the mobiles or tablets... then their location is known not only in cyber space, but in the real world too...

The value of Facebook is in its potential.

The value of Google is largely down to its potential too, although to a lesser extent because Google is further down the monetizing road than Facebook.

Both are marketeers wet dreams however, which is what it's all about really...

It's possible to drill down in both to target audiences more effectively and specifically than is possible via any other media...

And users are providing Google, Facebook and the marketeers with all the info they could want and pay billions for - for nothing...

[Des Quirell]

I couldn't disagree more. There should be rules that information shared for one purpose not be used for others. A huge centralized database containing every scrap of information on everybody in the country is the last thing we need. That's the road to a surveillance state.

Thankfully there are such rules.

Data can only be used for the explicit purpose for which it was collected.

It can't currently be shared between Government departments.

[perhapx]

I suppose our main concern might be that we can't know what a future government might be. So very strict rules would need to be in place. And any abuse or neglect be defines as a serious crime. We do need much better rules to protect our privacy being exploited commercially. Our privacy rights is already diminished. As I understand, Facebook has the right to use our personal information almost as they please. Their argument is that why bother try to protect that which is already on the Internet. Perhaps we should get working defining just what information may be held. And then work to get all democratic countries to enforce international laws of protection on what can be stored and what can be shared. We are already in a global world. so we need a global solution. Germany is very strong about such matter and may be a good place to start.