By Alex Deane
There was significant debate yesterday about the use of credit agencies as bounty hunters to track down benefit cheats. I don't really want to get into that debate as I've discussed it elsewhere, but the issue acted as a trigger for this post.
During that discussion, the Information Commissioner appeared on Newsnight. He said a few punchy things. I didn't disagree with him. But I was asked by a journalist whether I thought the ICO would actually do any good for the millions of people potentially affected by new policy. I laughed. Let me explain why.
I have lost all faith in the ICO. The reason for this is the office's approach to the Google StreetView debacle, perhaps - no, definitely - one of the biggest issues of our time which falls in his patch. In brief, Google have admitted that when their StreetView cars trundled around the world they had Wi-Fi receptors on board which picked up and retained private information being transmitted by those using the internet in the areas through which they travelled. Again, the issue has been thrashed through elsewhere and was recently the subject of a good debate you can watch online. The important point is that every other ICO or comparable office in countries around the world has taken action. Ours alone has not.
For goodness' sake, the Metropolitan Police are currently investigating Google over the issue. If the allegations against Google merit an investigation by the police, who have to consider the criminal standard of fault, how can it plausibly be suggested that those allegations fail to merit an investigation by the ICO?
There is plainly a need for someone to act in this area. But readers of this site will be all too familiar with the notion that bureaucratic machines can become self-serving time servers rather than engines of good governance. So it is, I fear, with the ICO. When that's the case, there's an obvious point to be made about a waste of public money. But, moreover, a false sense of security is given by the body concerned to those whose interests are supposedly defended (in this case, all of us). If the body didn't exist, people would perhaps be more proactive and assertive in taking more care to protect themselves, rather than relying on an institution which lets them down. In providing a veil over abuses or acting as an apologist in such situations, the institution actually makes the situation worse.
I want to stress that we at Big Brother Watch have approached the ICO with an open mind. Indeed, we welcomed Christopher Graham's appointment. We have praised and cited them when they have done a reasonable job (with a budget as big as that, and you're throwing that many darts, you can't help but hit the dartboard from time to time). We have, I think, been fair in forming our attitude and we have taken a lot of time in coming to this decision. But I'm afraid that I'm now convinced that the office should be abolished and we should start again.
In short, the Office is all a bit League of Nationsy, really. If we can't have the real thing, we're better off without this pale excuse.
