Penetralia

We all want to be able to live happy and healthy lives in safety and we look to the authorities to make this possible. But in order to acheive this, the authorities need information in the form of data:

Happy Life

The more our personal assistants (including video streaming services, home automaion systems, shopping sites) know about us, the more useful their recommendations and actions.

Healthy Life

When dealing with service providers (local authorities, health service etc.) we want them to have all the up to date information about us so they can make the correct decisions. If we need to visit a hospital for treatment, we want them to know what medication we are on and to have access to our full medical history to enable them to make informed and correct decisions. All possible benefits of a Digital ID.

Safe Life

We want law enforcement officers to be able to see anyone breaking into someone's property or causing injuries by dangerous driving or to determine who is using computers for illegal reasons ( Sex Crimes and photos , Police arresting 1,000 paedophile suspects a month across UK).

So why is it a problem if we allow the authorities to surveill our every move and monitor all our communications?

Life isn't perfect!

There are many reported instances where the ability to use personal data has been abused for example:

• Former Met officer sentenced in court after viewing police records for personal use.
• Officer sacked for improper use of police systems.
• Rogue employees and personal data.

The information the systems provide may be result in problems or harm:

• NHS computer issues linked to patient harm
• Behavioral contagion on social media
• Social media as an incubator of personality and behavioral psychopathology

The systems used to record the information may not be secure. When commercial interests are involved, the focus on system development is frequently the provision of the required information as quickly and cheaply as possible, system security is often insufficient as companies cut corners. Public systems designed by authorities and subcontracted to commercial suppliers have a terrible history of failure and overspending. Just look at the post office scandal as the major example,allegedly known faults were hidden by the suppliers and post office management to major detriment to the staff.

• Watchdog to fine NHS IT firm £6m after medical records hack
• Real-World Examples of Insecure Code (and What Went Wrong)
• ICO Report: Data security incident trends
• Reporting the Post Office Horizon IT Scandal
• America's top cyber-defense agency left a GitHub repo open with with passwords & keys

What is the solution?

Like it or not, more and more of our daily lives are being recorded. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, we can all benefit from these systems. The problem occurs when, for one reason or another, the systems are abused or, through nobody's fault, cause unexpected results.

All systems need to be properly designed with security in mind and regulations introduced to enforce monitoring of and corrections to inappropriate systems. When you look at examples of Police Officers using systems for their own personal use, one tends to think "How were they able to do so?". The systems should have in-built security so that the offence Can Not Happen. All use of the system should be approved, monitored and logged.

Big Tech and Social Media companies should be held liable for the harm their systems cause. It is well known that the algorithms feed growing amounts of dubious information and posts to users, eventually changing that user's perspective so that they accept, as normal, many things that most people see as wrong.

We need to ensure that "scope creep" is not allowed to find its way into public systems. They should be built to achieve exactly what they were approved to achieve, no more, no less. If new and better services are needed from the systems, proper approval should be gained from the correct channels. These improvements should bring with them new controls and monitoring if required.

The solution is to have effective laws and controls governing this data and to enforce those laws and controls.