The Saanich school district has abandoned its new student-tracking system after spending $1.5 million on the project. Apparently, the software couldn鈥檛 interface with the new personal identity card the provincial government wants us to carry.
Obviously, that鈥檚 a regrettable waste of taxpayers鈥� money. But there are larger matters at stake. What have student records got to do with a compulsory, lifelong identity card?
The government insists there鈥檚 an innocent explanation. In future, the objective is to make almost all public services available online.
To achieve that, a smart card is being developed that combines the old sa国际传媒 Health Card with the traditional driver鈥檚 licence. This, it is hoped, will reduce the need for written communications and endless rounds of telephone tag.
Just swipe the card and you get immediate, confidential entry to your personal government account. That could include student transcripts and records.
In principle, those are admirable objectives. But there is another side to this story.
At the same time the new ID card is being rolled out, the government is compiling a central repository of information on residents of the province.
Called Integrated Case Management, the system is designed to create a 鈥渉olistic view of each citizen.鈥� The initial objective is to link client files between two large ministries: Children and Family Development and Social Development /Social Innovation. Combined, these agencies hold more than 55 databases.
However, government documents envisage expanding the case-management system well beyond these two ministries. Health, justice and education are among the program areas mentioned.
If the project is broadened in this manner, public servants will be able to see far into our private lives. Thus, while we will have better access to our personal records, so will the bureaucracy.
As might be expected, a number of agencies at arm鈥檚 length from government have expressed alarm. The sa国际传媒 Civil Liberties Association has weighed in. So has the province鈥檚 information and privacy commissioner.
One obvious concern is that personal information will be handled inappropriately or accidentally disclosed. Just last week, it emerged that a hard drive lost last year by officials that contained profiles of 538,000 post-secondary students was unsecured and unencrypted.
The province insists there is no cause for fear. Security protocols will be followed and public servants will have access only on a need-to-know basis.
But even accepting these assurances, serious issues remain.
Once databases like these grow large enough, it becomes possible to infer intimate details about our lives, even if no one has access to confidential material.
The U.S. retail store Target was able to identify which of its customers were pregnant simply by linking credit card IDs to certain purchasing patterns.
The company fed the data into a computer and out popped the names.
The previous head of the CIA, Gen. David Petraeus, lost his job when email analysis showed he was having an affair. But no one saw the actual emails sent by his mistress. Petraeus鈥檚 name or address never appeared in the correspondence.
A pattern analysis of dates, times and places did him in. As computer experts point out, it鈥檚 not what鈥檚 in the files that matters, or who gets to read them. It鈥檚 how large the database is and how many different kinds of files are linked. If America鈥檚 top spy can鈥檛 protect his privacy, can we?
A few years back, the British government set out to create a national ID system. It was abandoned in the face of widespread disapproval.
Here in sa国际传媒, the government claims it has conducted a public consultation on the scheme. But the process canvassed only a limited range of options. Shutting the project down wasn鈥檛 one of them. That isn鈥檛 consulting; it is coercing.
