Government databases slammed as illegal

A REPORT PRODUCED BY THE JOSEPH ROWNTREE REFORM TRUST said a quarter of the UK government's largest databases are illegal and should be scrapped or redesigned.

The report entitled Database State was prompted by the catastrophic incompetence of a number government departments which lost huge amounts of data, including the entire child benefit database in October 2007.

Of the 46 databases investigated, only six were found to conform to current human rights and data protection laws. Nearly twice as many are described as: "Almost certainly illegal under human rights or data protection law and should be scrapped or substantially redesigned." The remaining 29 databases all have significant problems.

Major cock-ups were found in the NHS summary care record, the national childhood obesity database, the national pupil database, and the automatic number-plate recognition system.

The report estimates that £16 billion a year is being spent on IT projects, of which only a third end up being of any use. µ

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Database State (pdf)