Apologies made, can Labour turn it around?

No more hiding allowed, the Government finally faces up to the fact that they have failed miserably in their management of data handling. In the Commons on Wednesday, Alistair Darling had to apologize for the “serious institutional deficiencies” after four independent reports revealed the extent to which data protection and security have been inadequate across Whitehall.

Fittingly, just the day before, I attended an event at Westminster on the topic of ‘Data Security & Information Assurance’, hosted by the Parliamentary Information Technology Committee (PITCOM). The Chairman of the Cross-Departmental Committee on IT and Information Security, the RT Hon Paul Murphy MP, chaired the meeting and spoke about what he thought needed to be done in order to make data security a priority across all departments. The topic attracted a crowd, with not an empty seat to be had in the committee room.

Many of the points that Mr. Murphy touched upon, such as the importance of mandatory information training, working together across departments, regaining the public’s trust, and implementing stricter security measures, were echoed in the following day’s reports. The Information Commissioner’s Office, the data watchdog, warned that improvements needed to be made without delay, as some departments were even at risk of facing prosecution because of “deplorable failures”.

I strongly welcome the publications of these reports as they have forced the Government and the Civil Service to acknowledge that the issue of data security is a serious one. In an age where we share and give out our personal information almost on a daily basis, the Government must implement the necessary security measures. This matter will only become more serious with time, as data sharing continues to become more widespread.

With today marking the one year anniversary of Gordon Brown in power - the Labour party unfortunately has a lot more than just this one issue at stake. The results of the Henley by-election came out this morning, revealing a disastrous fifth place finish for Labour, winning less than 5% of the vote. So with little to celebrate on this anniversary, the Prime Minister faces pressure from all sides and on all issues. Will he be able to endure another defeat? The Labour party definitely needs a victory, small or large, in order to stop the increasingly popular Conservative train. Why not start with the issue of data security?