Image: Jeremy Keith/Flickr, CC 2.0.
Quite apart from the appalling mistreatment of generations of people, the Windrush scandal highlighted two deep problems about government’s handling of personal data. It confirms the government’s default position is one of disbelief – “guilty until proven innocent”, for some groups at least. And it also confirms that – despite years of experience of the consequences, the government remains utterly cavalier in its stewardship of your data.
From the Home Office hunting people down through their NHS data and their children’s school records, to Google DeepMind’s secret deal intending to feed 1.6 million Royal Free Hospital patient records to its Artificial Intelligence project to Job Centre bosses interfering in medical records, and the Department for Education packaging up students’ personal data for private exploitation – as many have learned, “the power of data” is not always benign.
