A Finextra member 26 November, 2009, 21:28 0 likes

Sorry but the video is by Charles Clover, Nov 24 "Russia's Information Black Market".  Use the slider on the right hand side to navigate to the right bulletin.

John Dring - Intel Network Services - Swindon 30 November, 2009, 09:49 0 likes

I think the link you want is:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/07dedd34-d921-11de-b2d5-00144feabdc0.html   but it is a slow one, so get it streaming and pause it to buffer it up, and you need full screen to read the subtitles!

I tend to agree.  I don't really see the big deal with a national ID programme (in the UK) since most 'normal' people will have a driving licence or passport with photo id etc on it anyway.  (A DNA database is a different thing.  Too easy for a speck of DNA to get injected into a crime scene and then you are in the position of proving innocence).

But the problem is really with all the other data that is farmed about you in the form of credit agreements, insurance policies (and the associated provided inside leg measurements) and these are not sources that are going to be put into the control of one big brother anytime soon - they are pushed around and traded without your consent, or rather with your forced and implicit consent, in order to get the credit/cover etc you need.  So eventually, this data will seep out to the public domain and will be (or is already) available if you know where to go.  Forcing a digital watermark/signature in the data might help identify the origin of the data, but it doesn't help once its  been leaked.  DRM protecting it seems the best option - time limiting the accessability of it should work for bulk data, but until then it can always be extracted into another format.

Maybe we should all have different Avatars for online registrations? At least then it would be more difficult to aggregate the info sources.  Each Avatar could supply a personal key (token) which only you hold the key to allow the onward distribution?  Then we would all need a Personal Security Device (PSD) to hold these private keys.

Just rambling now.