An Orwellian dystopia?

Have you ever seen the American cult comedy series King of the Hill?  It’s a story of average folk in a small to medium sized municipality in Texas.   One of the sharply drawn characters is Dale Gribble - a man obsessed with the power of the government and particularly its data gathering and analysis powers.  He does everything he can (in a comedically paranoid fashion) to stay off the books and out of the database.  

Having grown up in small to medium sized municipalities in the South, I recognise these characters and know people who have done everything possible to live a recordless existence.  It must be impossible now, but there were people I knew of who lived a totally cash based life, without a bank account or a social security number and they paid no tax.   And their motivation wasn’t entirely about tax evasion.  For them there was a fundamental principle about not getting tangled up with government business.  Obviously, their cases were a bit on the extreme side (and illegal), but I can certainly understand their concern over who holds personal data and what use they put it to.

We live in an age  when much of what we do is recorded and for every transaction and interaction we complete there’s an electronic record stored somewhere and accessible by someone.  Much of the time this information is never pulled together for the bigger picture - and that’s an opportunity missed.  But whether it’s an opportunity missed for good or ill is an important question that depends on circumstance and perspective.

We certainly know what can happen when information isn’t shared appropriately.  Tragedies like Victoria Climbie or Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells might well have been prevented had public sector agencies shared data.  In many cases, this information could have been shared legally but public servants either didn’t manage data well or thought (wrongly) that they weren’t allowed to share it.

In Dorset, the major public sector bodies have come together to overcome some of those administrative hurdles.

The Dorset Over-Arching Information Sharing Protocol allows data to be passed faster and easier between the county’s public sector bodies including the police, fire service, education chiefs, social workers and housing staff.

It is the first generic agreement of its kind in the country and was signed by bosses from six district and borough councils, the two unitary authorities of Bournemouth and Poole, Dorset County Council, Dorset Police and Dorset Fire and Rescue Service on May 8.
The Dorset Over-Arching Information Sharing Protocol allows data to be passed faster and easier between the county’s public sector bodies including the police, fire service, education chiefs, social workers and housing staff.

Personally, I think this is highly comendable.  It should be crystal clear to public sector agencies what data can be held, shared and accessed and by whom.  Hopefully their protocol involves all the titchy technical bits, too which make data storage and retrieval actually work - and actually allow us to match the right bits of information with the right person.

But, of course, not everyone is happy.

…Simon Davies, director of campaign group Privacy International, said such claims had no substance and added: “The history of information sharing is a history of failure.” Problems could arise if the wrong information was circulated and repeated between partner agencies, or if information was corrupted due to flaws in the system, he said.

Mr Davies said it was a “fundamental right” for each individual to control the way their personal data was used, and added: “It shows disregard for the rights of voters. He added: “There is a contract expected by people that requires authorities to have regard for the rights of individuals, to ask their opinion and to tell them precisely what is proposed and then to set limitations on what is proposed so it cannot creep into an Orwellian dystopia.”

And I think he has a point - and shouldn’t be dismissed as a grumpy Dale Gribble.  This is purely my personal opinion and does not reflect the views of my employer, but I do have concerns about ID cards and giant government databases which hold all kinds of information about me and my child and which can be accessed by an alarming number of people - some of whom may not have good intentions.  And, of course, there are all the recent stories about personal data losses, too. 

Public agencies must hold the public trust.  That’s always been the case.  But we need to understand the new powers we hold over people when we hold their personal data.   And we also need to understand the powerful lot of good we can do, too if information about users and citizens is held and managed properly. 

These are just some of the issues that we’ll touch on in our forthcoming online conference on Customer Insight - how we gather, hold and use customer and citizen data to drive local improvement.