Archive for May, 2009
NortgateArinso lose Pensions Trust’s unencrypted data
The Pensions Trust have written to some of their members to inform them that NorthgateArinso, “delivering HR excellence”, have had an unencrypted laptop containing personal details stolen from their offices.
The personal details stolen, for members of six of the Pensions Trusts 39 schemes (as of May 2007) were:
- name
- address
- date of birth
- National Insurance numbers
- name of employer
- salary details
- information on nominees (name and relationship)
- bank account (for those in receipt of a pension)
That is quite a list. Apparently NortgateArinso were using the now stolen laptop as a, “database for development, training and performance testing.” Why were they using live data for training and testing? Why wasn’t the laptop encrypted? Why wasn’t the laptop physically secured?
The Pensions Trust have reported the loss to the Information Commissioner, and attempt to reassure members that, “the data was password protected and as such, not easily accessible.” and that, “NorthgateArinso regret that this theft has occurred and are doing everything possible to retrieve the data” but I suspect it is too late.
Scans of letter and factsheet from Pension Trust below the fold.
UPDATE: This is now in the media: BBC News, Professional Pensions, The Register. Also commentary from Jamie Dowling at View From Planet Jamie and logged at DataLossDB and the Open Rights Group UK Privacy Debacles wiki.
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-05-24
- Reading about the ContactPoint database roll out, feel nauseous contemplating the evil possibilities that result. #
- Just watched recording of the season finale of Lost. Not sure why I bothered, sunk cost fallacy anybody?? #
- RT @LewishamCouncil: Funding available for voluntary, community and faith groups, next deadline 1 June http://ow.ly/7Lck #fb #
- @datastore we need more data on all MPs to really understand this – my suggestions here: http://bit.ly/sStON but could be v. time consuming! #
- On the way to Edinburgh on National Express – seeking relief from A.C. Grayling’s, “Towards the Light” on twitter! #
MPs expenses
Following on from my earlier post, MPs expenses and seat safety.
All the information I was suggesting is in the public domain, and I did start putting it together using the theyworkforyou.com API but I didn’t get very far. I also won’t get very far anytime soon as I am off to Edinburgh for the weekend. However, if all that information was available in one spreadsheet then it should be possible to look at which MPs have expenses which are unexplained, that is, particularly high or low given the observable characteristics we can analyse such as constituency distance from Westminster (another one – constituency area, don’t want to penalise highlands and islands MPs).
This means that rather than base analysis on the information the Daily Telegraph has provided, we can try and work out if there is any obvious explanatory variables for the cases the Daily Telegraph has released, apart from “unacceptable” or “completely unacceptable” expense claims of course!
MPs expenses and seat safety
Mark Thompson of “Mark Reckons” has done some analysis of MPs expenses and how safe that MP is in their seat. He used a list of MPs who have had their expenses “illuminated” by the Daily Telegraph here and then split them into seat safety (raw number, not proportional to constituency population, I believe) quartiles. This seems to show that those MPs in the safest seats are the most likely to have “cheated” on their expenses, as defined by the Daily Telegraph.
It has been picked up all over the place, the Guardian datablog, by Polly Toynbee, and Mark has been invited onto Radio 4’s “More or Less“, I will be interested to know what Tim Harford makes of it.
This is all very interesting and adds to the debate about our current voting system, but the analysis is dodgy. First, the definition of what is and what is not cheating on expenses is entirely determined by the Daily Telegraph. Isn’t it reasonable to think that the Daily Telegraph is picking on the biggest names first, and that perhaps the biggest names have the safest seats? Second, the majority (seems to be) the raw majority, from here, but surely the key point is the majority proportional to the size of the constituency. For example, compare Aldershot with a Conservative majority of 5,334 and Aldridge Brownhills with a Conservative majority of 5,507. The first has a population of 94,422 over the age of 15 (age breakdowns are not helpful!) in 2007, and the second 66,058. This is a difference of nearly 50%, and makes a huge difference. And of course the size of the registered electorate also matters, and turnout. So perhaps the best figure to use is the percentage point difference, or the swing required to unseat the MP. Perhaps Mark did this, but it isn’t clear.
What would be interesting instead is some multivariate analysis, trying to control for all the other factors that matter and analysing not the Daily Telegraph’s views, but the actual data on MPs expenses. The Guardian have collated some info here but what I don’t think has been done is to put together a spreadsheet with all the MPs, alongwith possible explanatory factors. For example:
- expenses in all years since 2005;
- constituency majority (various measures);
- distance of constituency from Westminster (travel time, miles and cost);
- year of election to Parliament;
- gender, age, family, etc, etc;
- party;
- attitudes as demonstrated by their voting record on key issues;
- ministerial or shadow ministerial responsibilities.
There must be many more possibilities. When all that information is in one place, then we can see what might explain the expenses MPs actually claim, rather than this pretty dodgy Daily Telegraph based analysis.
All that said, good on Mark for actually looking at this, I haven’t seen many others bother!
[follow-up post: MPs expenses]
Web designer opposes France’s “3 strikes” law, loses job
Unbelievable? Via ORG:
After sending a private note to his MP opposing the proposed “three strikes” law currently being debated in France, Bourreau-Guggenheim found himself hauled into his boss’ office. He was shown a copy of his e-mail, and he was fired for “strategic differences” with his employer.
Link to Ars Technica story. And a follow up reporting someone in the Culture Minsters’ office has been suspended.
Rushey Green Assembly
I have just discovered that Lewisham has an assembly for each ward, mine being Rushey Green. Agreed priorities are:
- public drinking
- lack of youth facilities
- parking
- anti-social behaviour
- poor public facilities (toilets)
which seems about right. Next meeting on Monday 29th June in Catford.
From the minutes it looks like all the Rushey Green Councillors attend.
Rushey Green ward councillors
Surgery times
- 1st, 3rd and 4th Saturdays of the month 11am – 12pm, Room 6, Lewisham Town Hall (by the cashiers)