Month: January 2008

My role on the British Computer Society (BCS) Ethics Panel resulted in me leading the debate at one of the tables at this Thought Leadership event at the Royal Society.

I was lucky enough to have Onora O’Neill on my table; not only an absolutely brilliant mind for such a discussion but also delightful company.

The idea was that I simply take hand-written notes and then Penny Duquenoy, who ran the secretariat of our group, would produce a write up.

But a few days after the event Penny e-mailed me to say that she couldn’t read my hand-writing at all, so could I provide her with some typed notes. My handwriting illegible – who knew?

Several days of too-ing and fro-ing ensued in an attempt to get my hand-written notes back to me. Eventually they came and I then submitted the following notes, which paid careful heed to the Chatham House rule so I feel perfectly at liberty to reproduce them here. The topic of this debate is all too relevant as I write 11 years later and for sure will remain relevant for some time to come.

BCS THOUGHT LEADERSHIP DISCUSSION ON SHARING HUMAN DATA – TABLE ONE NOTES

• Concern that we do not have privacy legislation in the UK, we have data protection legislation which is not the same thing. We have incoherent case law on privacy and a resulting inconsistency between case law and statute law.
• Principles such as “proportionality” and “need to know” are extremely hard to interpret and we don’t even have formal mechanisms on how to interpret these concepts.
• Discussed the example of patient identifiers at some length – the pros and the cons (as outlined in the introductory talks).
• Discussed “lazy data sharing” – i.e. many of the problems we experience are connected with human error, laziness etc., not information systems themselves.
• Discussed the principle of autonomy, how that differs from privacy etc.
• Discussed the relative merits of “opt out” and “opt in” schemes. Concerns about complexity in both cases – i.e. concerns that both practitioners and subjects struggle to understand such schemes. Opt out often simpler in many ways, but concerns about direct and/or indirect discrimination against those who opt out. US examples cited.
• DNA database discussed at length as an example with many facets. Should everybody be on the DNA database (avoids the discrimination risk). But then how much DNA information could/should reasonably be held to ensure benefits while minimising the risk of misuse. Worried about lack of safeguards, wrongful use of information, over-abstraction (e.g. to the extent that such DNA evidence would be inadmissible in court).
• Discussed Prüm Treaty and its implications for sharing DNA information. Also discussed Passenger Name Record proposal (EU).
• Should each citizen have a unique chip implant at birth? This led on to discussion of ID cards.
• Concern about too much stricture. People like multiple identities without necessarily using same for serious crime, fraud or mischief. Several “close to home” examples were discussed; these are mercifully protected by the Chatham House Rule and the fact that I did not write them down at the time.

Re that last point, it’s not exactly a breach of the Chatham House rule for me to state that I explained my use of Ged Ladd as a benign second identity for the purposes of fun stuff and for communicating with nephews and nieces who, at that time, might have found corresponding with uncles and aunts on (e.g.) Facebook a little embarrassing.

I don’t think it breaches the Chatham House rule for me to reveal that, once I self-outed such use, that more than half the other people at the table admitted that they too, for various benign reasons, use second identities on line for some purposes. Fascinating.