I think Charlton Heston put it best: Damn them all to hell! They finally went and did it! They blew it up!” That was my immediate reaction to the Brexit news this morning. A campaign that was polluted by lies and misinformation from the pro-Brexit side, including a bold claim that voting to leave the …
Today is International Women’s Day. It is also another day that the Irish Department of Health and Children will spend counting down the hours until they can destroy material evidence of bad things that have happened to women in the State. Material evidence that they obtained through the operation of a Redress Scheme the terms …
Over on the company site I’ve written a piece on Data Retention policies that references the Symphisiotomy redress scheme as a case study in data retention planning (not in a good way). For those who didn’t spot it yesterday and who are glued to the national media that isn’t referencing this huge story, let me …
My significant other has acted as an enumerator for the Irish Census of Population in the past, and has applied to do it again. Every census season, I see lots of ill-informed comment about the nature of the census, what the data can or will be used for, and who it will be shared with. …
Over the course of my career I’ve been lucky to meet and become friends with many of the pioneers in the fields of Information Quality, Data Governance, and Data Protection. I have been doubly fortunate that some of these people have also become mentors – helping me to figure out what I wanted to do, …
So, the Minister for Education is fighting a rear-guard action to justify the method of execution of the Primary Online Database. Get ready for the rakes. Correctly, she is stressing the need for a means to track education outcomes as children move from primary to secondary education, where there is a drop-out rate which is …
The more I see the mindset of the Irish Civil Service around data and its potential for use (and misuse and abuse), the harder I find it to get this video out of my mind. Over the past two years, literally at every turn, an initiative has been launched which has, within a short period …
Irish Government projects and the Data Protection Rake Read More »
Having failed the Privacy by Design Test, Irish Water have lurched into one of my other specialist areas today, Information Quality. This story in the Irish Times http://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/some-householders-having-trouble-reading-water-meters-1.1959841 relates to the quality of information presentation in the design of some of the meters used by Irish Water. It also relates to data quality characteristics such as …
Irish Water is working hard on Twitter and in other forums to convince itself, if not us, that all is well with regard to their Data Protection policies and procedures. In response to questions raised about the retention of data, specifically PPSN data once allowance entitlements are validated and personal data of non-customers, Irish …
Elizabeth Arnett of Irish Water was on Morning Ireland this morning. Some good and important clarifications given. She confirmed PPSN would only be used for the purposes of validating allowance entitlements. That differs from the commentary in yesterday’s Irish Times in the context of landlords and tenants, but clears up the confusion. Irish Water will …
Morning Ireland, Irish Water, and Data Protection clarifications Read More »