18 Mar 2009

Public information 'should be protected'

A sector analyst is calling for a controversial public information database to be scrapped to prevent the risk of security breaches.

UK website Spy Blog, which aims to promote public demand for privacy safeguards, says the government should put a stop to plans to create a single server monitoring mobile phone and internet traffic.

"You would have thought that after the various reviews of data insecurity … would have put a stop to new snooping databases," the source states.

The blog claims the incident detailed in the Burton Report, in which a laptop containing the details of 600,000 people was stolen, should act as reason not to go ahead with a central database.

Whitehall departments and large public sector companies should be concentrating on fixing existing security issues before creating a new facility, the source concludes.

Sir David Omand, the former UK security and intelligence coordinator, recently claimed modern intelligence access is often conducted at the expense of people's privacy, the Guardian reports.