We live in an information age - and increasingly, a personal information age. In many ways we are reaping the rewards, from the potential for more efficient government, better customer service, and more ways for us to influence and manipulate what people think of us.

But we have yet to understand the consequences of our reliance on personal data. That means that people do not have enough of a say about how their personal information is used. As a result, we are losing control over what people and organisations think about us.

We need policy, technology, legal frameworks and practices that put people at the centre of the flows of their personal information.

What we're doing
We launched the FYI: the new politics of personal information pamphlet on 7th December 2007. We were delighted to be joined by the Information Commissioner Richard Thomas, BBC technology critic Bill Thompson, and comedian and columnist Natalie Haynes.

You can download a pdf copy of the pamphlet FYI: the new politics of personal information for free here. You can watch a video about the research on the DemosTV YouTube channel here.

Next steps: People's Inquiry into Identity Technologies
The next phase of our research will focus on developing the public voice in the personal information debate. We want to run a People's Inquiry into identity technologies - an experiment in exploring public attitudes to the political, technological and legal implications of identity technologies.

You can download our project proposal for FYI: A People's Inquiry into Identity Technologies, here. We will follow the research with a conference at Wilton Park next June.

Do get in touch if you would like to talk to us about the FYI research, are interested in collaborating or would like to know more about our future work in this area.

For more about People's Inquiry is, see our Nanodialogues pamphlet.


Recommendations from FYI: the new politics of personal information

People themselves must be put at the centre of information flows. Our findings suggested a number of measures that government, the private sector and individuals could follow to improve the relationship between people, personal information and the institutions that use that information.

For individuals, we recommend:

The first step is for individuals to take measures to protect their personal information. Second,they must recognise the connections between the benefits ofsharing information, and the often less tangible costs and dangers that can result. However, this needs considerable support from government and the private sector to start the process.
 
For government, we recommend:

• Each government department using personal information must say how they are accessing personal information, for what purpose, and how it affects people.They should also employ ‘cash-handling’disciplines for dealing with people’s personal information.

• The government should begin long-term research into the implications of increasing levels of information about individuals, coupled with personalising services. Segmentation and increasing knowledge of individuals will create markets that exclude in ways that current uses ofinformation do not. That will have a significant impact on what is meant by equality. For example, will a new frontier of the welfare state be providing life insurance for certain types ofpeople who are deemed bad investments by private insurance providers?

• The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) needs greater capacity to cope with the range of demands of an information society, which continue to extend away from just security of data towards data use and the nature of information sharing.

• ‘Privacy impact assessments’ should be used for major projects across public and private sectors to assess the use of personal information early in development, led by the ICO.

• There needs to be a serious, renewed debate about the identity card scheme, with the kind of engagement that should have happened at the start of the process. Otherwise, the scheme should be dropped. Meaningful engagement with the public about how the technology should work must be foremost in shaping any national identity scheme.

For business and the private sector, we recommend:

• The rights of access individuals have to information held about them in the private sector should be extended, including the right to know what groups people have been ‘segmented’into, and allow greater ability for individuals to challenge and change existing information about themselves that they believe to be invalid,incorrect or unfair.

• There should be a common sense test for privacy statements and personal information policy. The private sector must provide simple,accessible explanations of why personal information is gathered. A move away from jargon is needed. This means, for example,requiring businesses to follow the legal concept ofthe ‘reasonable person’ when drawing up policy statements on personal information.

• Banks should consider a ‘no claims bonus’ for customers who successfully protect their personal information.

FYI: the new politics of personal information was supported by O2.