We've had some interesting reader responses to a recent IT Week article about amendments to the Companies Act, which reveal a good deal about the government's attitude to data sharing. Under the changes, as of 1 January UK companies have been required to provide their company registration details on all electronic communications, including emails and web sites.
The decision to introduce the amendments just after Christmas led one law firm to warn that they are likely to have slipped under the radar of many UK businesses.
Responses from readers appear to bear this out. One IT manager pointed out that his firm had received no warning about the changes from any official channel or IT support partner, and that he remained unsure about which government department is in charge of enforcing the Companies Act. Another argued that if the government chose to amend corporate law, it should have informed companies directly rather than expecting them to dig out the information themselves.
There is a certain degree of irony here. The government passed these amendments into law to ensure companies share more corporate information when communicating with customers, and clearly state their business operations in emails and on web sites. Yet there appears to be a lot of confusion among firms about the new requirements due to a lack of information-sharing on the government's part.
This is even more pertinent at a time when Tony Blair is calling for government departments to be allowed to share more personal data among themselves. Under the plans announced in January, data protection rules could be relaxed so that information collected for one purpose could be shared with and reused by a different government agency.
To help develop the proposals, the government has appointed a panel of 100 members of the public to debate the issues and report back to the Cabinet Office in March. A key issue will be whether it is worth the public trading off current privacy procedures to obtain improvements in services.
On launching the citizens panel, Blair was quick to deny that the development of new technology or a new database was the crux of the data-sharing plans – some observers have suggested the proposed ID cards database would be the most likely central point for shared information. But it's hard to imagine how the government plans to link all the personal data stored within its various systems, and ensure that the information shared around is the most recent and accurate version, without a reliance on new or updated technology or databases.
It will be interesting to follow the thoughs of the citizens panel, as generally the public tends to be wary of additional government access to data, even if it is sugar-coated as a way of improving services. Whatever the result, though, hopefully this time around at least one civil servant will have the good sense to ensure the affected parties are made aware of the outcome.
