Policy formulation by tie-breaker...
Here's an interesting new online competition. It comes in the form of the Draft Legislative Programme consultation launched by Harriet Harman - leader of the House of Commons. It runs until August 6th, and it's your opportunity to comment on any or all of the 18 bills proposed for the next parliament. There doesn't seem to be anything in there on energy and food security, climate change, or overseas development (the top three items from the recent G8 Summit ), but what there is covers such large and fundamental topics as:
- interception and aggregation of all your communications data (see previous post)
- equality
- "constitutional renewal"
- NHS reform
- community empowerment, housing and economic regeneration (all one bill...)
- law and order, policing and crime reduction, Geneva conventions
- welfare reform
Strange as it may seem, there was a Welfare Reform Act only last year. I had a look, and it ran to 94 pages, not including the explanatory notes. Which brings me to a further slight snag. On any given bill your considered comments are limited to 500 characters.
I feel I should warn Ms Harman - that may lead to some pretty pithy expressions of opinion.
Posted by racingsnake
@ 04:49 PM GMT+00:00
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Policy and technology evolve at different rates
Security Minister Lord West is reported as saying there is no firm policy position yet on whether the government's proposed Communications Data Bill will establish a database of phone call data, mobile phone location and internet usage. Lord West also pointed out that internet users are currently often unaware of how much data their activities reveal - all the while noting that he was 'unclear' about the legal position of BT's trials of the Phorm user-tracking system. The EU's Information Society and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding seems to be in no such doubt.
What is clear is that technical capability and legislation frequently progress at different rates. It's tempting to think of technology always outstripping the legal machine, but that's not an entirely accurate model. For example, take the EU's bi-annual Ministerial Conference on e-Government. Every two years the participants know they have to come up with something which advances on the previous conference's policy statements and reflects some form of measured progress in implementation. Usually the tension seems to be in that latter goal: it's not so much the technology which lags behind, as the ability to put it into effective use on a continental scale.
Of course, in the case of the Communications Data Bill "effective use" doesn't necessarily mean just making interception of all traffic possible; it means doing so in a way which balances the law enforcement requirement against risks like inappropriate disclosure, abuse of personal or sensitive data, and the longer-term effects on civil liberties (to which, to do him credit, the Information Commissioner Richard Thomas drew attention in his comment on the story). The devil's in the democracy.
Posted by racingsnake
@ 03:48 PM GMT+00:00
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