More data debacles?

When will they learn? Today's Data Day at the government, with two extraordinary announcements. One comes from the Home Office, and claims that a majority of British people are in favour of a national ID database. We don't know who they asked, but if it was based on a mailout from their own systems, we reckon they probably got responses from three Poles, a sheepdog and an observatory in Peru. Of course, the most important thing is that this poll was conducted before HMRC lost all our data. So it's functionally irrelevant.

As if that wasn't enough, the government's got another wizard wheeze: an electronic database of teenagers which will include, laughably, an "uncrackable" online CV. Dizzy has some fun with this:

It never ceases to amaze me how Government ministers are complete idiots when it comes to technology. Rule number one. If a human being writes a system, a human being can crack it. The Germans thought Enigma was uncrackable too, look where that got them.