[Bradford] Fwd: Leeds Data Thing

[David Spencer]

> FWIW data protection is mostly regulation and arbitration, giving
> powers to an under-funded, politically appointed regulator. Like most
> of the stuff arriving from Europe in recent years, the protection it
> gives is only to the rich, well connected and influential whilst
> seeking to limit our common law rights...

If you mean Max Mosley [1], well, yeah, though that's the courts that
are the problem.  If you mean Facebook and Google, the fix might well
need more regulation, but it's hard to see anyone in the current
political ecosystem doing that wisely, so yeah again. (I suspect btw
the next political meme will be to see these firms as cash cows to be
milked with vast fines: less avoidable than taxation and can be
targeted on firms that don't kiss the right political backsides.)

But DPA 1984 was immensely valuable, most of all in that it gave the
world a vocabulary for discussing these matters.  Even now, Americans
struggle to understand concepts such as "identifiable living
individual" and "subject access request" because they have a mental
void that is coterminous with their legislative void.

-D.

[1]
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130131/02565321837/dangerous-european-courts-considering-requiring-search-engine-filters-over-embarrassing-content.shtml
(with still pictures ;-)