Monday 28 February 2011

Privacy? That depends on who and when......

From Open Europe's press summary for today:
"Environment Minister’s family has earned £2m in EU farm paymentsThe Mail on Sunday reported that the family of a Government Minister, Richard Benyon, has earned £2m in EU farm subsidies between 1999 and 2009. Mr Benyon, a Conservative MP, is the Environment and Fisheries Minister within DEFRA, which recently blocked public access to all information about how much farmers had earned from subsidies in order to comply with an ECJ ruling on data privacy."
From the ONS, via IanPJ on Politics:
"All data is the property of the ONS and only UK/EU owned companies will have any access to personal census data."
It would seem we have a principle being applied in two different ways - one which protects personal data for politicians, the other doing the exact opposite for ordinary people.

Welcome to Democratised Dictatorship!

4 comments:

john in cheshire said...

I hope someone is keeping a list of names. When the time comes, I expect to see him being rewarded for his honesty and loyalty to our country.

WitteringsfromWitney said...

jic: Oh yes!

microdave said...

"All data is the property of the ONS and only UK/EU owned companies will have any access to personal census data."

The people at SpyBlog don't think that guarantee is worth a jot...

https://p10.secure.hostingprod.com/@spyblog.org.uk/ssl/spyblog/2011/02/26/indy-letters-page---glen-watson-confirms-lack-of-census-confidentiality-powers.html

WitteringsfromWitney said...

md: thanks for additinal link.