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28 November 2007
Vince Cable speaks
on a Conservative opposition day motion on HM Revenue and Customs
Acting Liberal Democrat Leader Vince Cable raised concerns over the use of large centralised databases containing sensitive information after the loss of data for 25 million people. Dr Cable estimated the data would be worth around £1.5 billion in criminal value, which would make ‘the Brinks Mat robbery the equivalent of stealing the church collection.’
Dr Cable then highlighted the problems of centralised databases:
“The fundamental issue that I wish to raise is the danger, which has now been highlighted, of big centralised databases. The underlying issue is that we have big centralised data systems, with large numbers of people who have access to them, so any mistake is compounded on a large scale? there are big Government central databases about which important questions now need to be asked.”
“For example, there is a new child protection database system called ContactPoint, which was created in the wake of the Climbié inquiry. As I understand it?I stand to be corrected?in the order of 300,000 professionals could have access to that database. It is difficult not to imagine that at least a few of them might have some malign intention. The problem lies in the sheer scale of the database to which they have access, however well managed it is and however good the protocols.”
“There is also the looming issue of the NHS spine, containing highly sensitive medical data to which well over 300,000 people will have access. I am told that some journalists are willing to pay £10,000 or something of that order for access to the medical records of a celebrity. The temptation for somebody to use and abuse the database in that way is obvious. Although there are disadvantages to a fragmented system in which GPs have their own records on paper, it is significantly better for security.”
“My point is that one of the lessons that we should learn from this episode is that big is not necessarily beautiful and that there is advantage in a small scale. That may well result in reduced efficiency, but when we are concerned about massive data loss and security, there is an argument for smallness. We should start to adopt that approach for some sensitive database systems.”
Click here to read Dr Cable’s speech in full
Acting Liberal Democrat Leader Vince Cable raised concerns over the use of large centralised databases containing sensitive information after the loss of data for 25 million people. Dr Cable estimated the data would be worth around £1.5 billion in criminal value, which would make ‘the Brinks Mat robbery the equivalent of stealing the church collection.’
Dr Cable then highlighted the problems of centralised databases:
“The fundamental issue that I wish to raise is the danger, which has now been highlighted, of big centralised databases. The underlying issue is that we have big centralised data systems, with large numbers of people who have access to them, so any mistake is compounded on a large scale? there are big Government central databases about which important questions now need to be asked.”
“For example, there is a new child protection database system called ContactPoint, which was created in the wake of the Climbié inquiry. As I understand it?I stand to be corrected?in the order of 300,000 professionals could have access to that database. It is difficult not to imagine that at least a few of them might have some malign intention. The problem lies in the sheer scale of the database to which they have access, however well managed it is and however good the protocols.”
“There is also the looming issue of the NHS spine, containing highly sensitive medical data to which well over 300,000 people will have access. I am told that some journalists are willing to pay £10,000 or something of that order for access to the medical records of a celebrity. The temptation for somebody to use and abuse the database in that way is obvious. Although there are disadvantages to a fragmented system in which GPs have their own records on paper, it is significantly better for security.”
“My point is that one of the lessons that we should learn from this episode is that big is not necessarily beautiful and that there is advantage in a small scale. That may well result in reduced efficiency, but when we are concerned about massive data loss and security, there is an argument for smallness. We should start to adopt that approach for some sensitive database systems.”
Click here to read Dr Cable’s speech in full
Applicability: this item refers to the UK.
