Quote:
Originally Posted by Kursk
A further question therefore: what is the validity of the specific Assessment that you are to produce? I am unclear on the conclusions that can be drawn from a document you will produce for a client. Thank you.
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OK, let me repeat the facts. As Phorm and 80/20 Thinking have both publicly stated, this is a commercial contract. 80/20 is a commercial organisation, even if it is a commercial organisation with a difference (half its profits go to civil liberties campaigners in developing countries).
This document is knows as a "late stage Privacy Impact Assessment". It is "late stage" because the Information Commissioner only launched the PIA framework four months ago, long after Phorm had set its wheels in motion.
The document is
process driven. That is, it sets out in fairly clinical terms whether due diligence in privacy has been undertaken, whether the company has followed the correct procedures, whether it meets a number of tests. It is
not a legal opinion, nor is it an ethics essay. However what it does offer is a means of knowing what we do and do not know about the system and outlines the questions that this raises.
Some of you have suggested that we should poll people up and down the country. That would be an interesting exercise, but would tell us less than you might imagine. And what if, for example, the results of the poll indicated a majority support for the Phorm scheme? Where would that leave us? You might want to think twice before entering
that quagmire. After five years fighting the discredited ID card we're still struggling to poll more than fifty percent in our favour. If we ran a poll through ICM tomorrow, I dare say the results would run that way. And it would, quite rightly not change your view of the ethics of all this. I wouldn't expect it to.
Same applies with legal opinion. What if we went down that road? Let's say we did definitively conclude that the system was in fact lawful if certain notification and consent conditions could be met. Would that change your view on the ethical position? You would argue, as I have done in other arenas many times, that the law must change.
No, my job is simply to assess the facts of the case. You will not like some of our conclusions but you will embrace others. Ours is in many ways the disinfectant of sunshine. That process might seem pointless to some of you, but its value will become evident in time.
---------- Post added at 12:57 ---------- Previous post was at 12:50 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by popper
thats an interesting point of view Simon, but it seems against the founding principles of the www.ico.gov.uk and it's PIA documents.
does the ICO or the EU Commisioners office for that matter, consider their official documents subordinate to anything else relating to the UK/EU privacy domain/facts? |
I think I may not have been precise enough with my wording. You cannot poll the opinions of the population until you can communicate precisely what is known. It would be bizarre to ask for opinions in any structured way until the full range of facts can be presented. The key point of the public meeting is to test assertions, ask questions and engage with those who know those facts.