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Canadian Gov't Keeps Detailed Citizen Database
Byron Sonne wrote with word that Canada's Privacy Commissioner Bruce Phillips, in his annual report to Parliament, today criticized a national database kept by the Human Resources Department, calling it "tantamount to a citizen profile."
From the article: "The "extraordinarily detailed database" holds a dossier on almost every person in Canada with as many as 2,000 pieces of information about each person's education, marital status, ethnic origin, mobility, disabilities, income tax, employment and social assistance history."
Fear not -- Human Resources Minister Jane Stewart says that "[a]ll the information is secure, it's encrypted." Interesting, given that apparently blase attitude toward the propriety of keeping such a database in the first place, that Canada has a privacy commissioner at all -- but from the sound of this a fortunate thing it does.
Holland, as well as Belgium and France, have completely de-centralised collecting and storing data on their citizens. This is because it was centralised to some fashion when the nazis took over and used those lists to weed out undesirables. The nazis seized each community's records, and then slowly but surely weeded out Jews, Gypsies, Gays, Philosophers, left leaning ex-politicians, Clergy, students who dropped out of school (possibly to join resistance), and the list goes on. After the war, it was made as difficult as possible for anyone in charge of the country to efficiently target any single group. It might start in one area, but that would alert others who could then take a counter-action to save lives.
/. and usenet.
:-)
Large random acts of distruction happen very rarely, and if it takes a little extra time to comb through some local tax and phone records to compile a list of people in a neighborhood, then we'll accept that extra bit of inefficiency. It is much better for a government to be inefficient than to give up all your privacy, and perhaps your life, because someone was able to dredge through a nationwide database and decide you are now undesirable.
I think the missing count is way down today, as they manually strike names off of various lists compiled in haste. But the body count is rising slowly as search efforts continue. Almost everyone in my town knows someone or of someone affected by the blast, it's sad, really.
There are several quotes floating around by various famous people who fought for freedom. Some americans, french, indians, south africans, and others who watched the horribly criminal actions of rogue governments who were a little too efficient in their enforcement of unfair laws. Look around, you'll see them as poster's sigs on
the AC
The upside of having no central tax database is that many people move to a new district every year, because it takes about a year for the tax records to follow them. After 5 or 10 years, the tax authorities will finally catch up, and present a bill for the previous 3 years. YMMV & IANATL
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
Having spend 12 months on a co-op job at Humans Resources Development Canada's Ontario Regional Headquarters in the Systems Admin area, I have to agree that their concenpt of secure is a joke -->
1. They believe they are less prone to attacks because they use 'Banyan VINES' and no-one uses Banyan VINES.
2. Whereas most companies uses Windows NT rather then Windows 9x or 3.x since its more secure[LINUX Trolls, I know LINUX is more secure but you have to admit that NT Security is better hten Windows 9x or 3.x]. HRDC seems bent on using all three operating systems.
3. Dial-Up. These people allow workers dialup from HOME using ReachOut [think along lines of Symantec pcAnywhere].
4. Theft. When I was working there, out of an staff of 400 there was 2 stolen lap tops and someone manage to break in and steal 4 machines. I hate to know what are on those harddrives.
5. AUTO-LOGIN! Half the people in the building has it setup [through TweakUI] so that their computer automatically logon to the network for them when they bootup.
6. Job Termainals --> Any Canadian knows about them, they're the little things at malls and stuff that helps you find a job. Well, those things are connected to the entire HRDC network. If someone compromise one of these, then they're screwed.
7. Incomptant Admins --> When I did my co-op there, out of the 10 admins there only 2 had a college degree and out of the two, one was an Psychology Degree. Most of the admins are qualified because they took some 'Computer Repair' or 'Acess Design' course at a community college or somewhere.
8. Idiot Workers --> Have you heard of the recent CSIS problems? [CSIS = NSA]. A BRIEFCASE of confidental docuemnts was stolen from a car of a agent while he was at a ball game.
Expecting the Canadian Government to keep a secure private database is like asking a car to fly, its not going to happen.
-- Note: These Comments are Generated by ME! Not You! ME!
Actually, 'This Hour has 22 Minutes' made a good point about a month ago about the whole Jane Stewart thing...most of the money disappeared/was misappropriated/given away when Pierre Petigrew was the Minister. Now I beleive he's the Minister in charge of Industry. Jane Stewart walked in (las t aug I beleive), was told by Sr. bureaucrats everthing was OK and them had to face the music when it wasn't.
Anyway, back to the topic at hand. It doesn't matter wether I beleive or trust Jane Stewart...Peirre Petigrew may come back or, God Forbid, the 'Alliance' forms the next government. Someone I definitely don't trust could take over in the future. Therefore nobody should beable to access this information.
(PS for all the Canadians reading this, if you don't think the likes of Tom "Sieg Hiel!" Long or Preston Manning wouldn't like to get their hands on this info, your sadly mistaken. The 'Alliance' Facists would be way worse than simply incompetent Liberals)
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
It has been estimated that the average Dutch citizen has an entry in 400 databases. Makes you think.
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.