Mashing up the BNP

Tom Griffin, 19 November 2008

Subjects:

Tom Griffin (London, OK): As the Guardian 's Michael White notes, the leak of the BNP's membership database raises many of the same issues as recent losses of personal data by the Government. If anything, it has provided a much more dramatic illustration of the potential impact on individuals.

The episode has also proven to be a true 'wikileak', in the sense that it has highlighted the power of Web 2.0, with a Google Map of the data briefly appearing before its creator decided to take it down in favour of a somewhat less informative heatmap.

openDemocracy's own Tony Curzon-Price has produced an analysis of the titles of individual BNP members which provides an interesting social snapshot of the party:

Number of BNP members by Title

Mr   11688
Ms   556
Mrs   1419
Miss   410
Prof   1
Rev   5
Sir   1
Cllr   74
Capt   2

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