Alan Travis for The Guardian writes that a report commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust has found that a quarter of all the largest public-sector database projects, including the ID cards register, are fundamentally flawed and clearly breach European data protection and rights laws.
Claiming to be the most comprehensive map so far of Britain’s “database state”, the report says that 11 of the 46 biggest schemes, including the national DNA database and the Contactpoint index of all children in England, should be given a “red light” and immediately scrapped or redesigned.
The report Database State was produced by Ross Anderson and his team at the Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge. The report says that more than half of Whitehall’s 46 databases and systems have significant problems with privacy or effectiveness, and could fall foul of a legal challenge.
Professor Ross Anderson from Cambridge, who wrote the report, and Michael Wills, the minister in the Justice Department, discuss the need to have an open debate.
