Whilst the recent opinions in the USA on the lack of wisdom of granting patents for the mere reproduction of an existing business method in a computerised form have sent a wave of fear around the businesses who thought they were being clever buying in patents that any business was bound to infringe, in Europe there is a different focus.

Everybody ‘knows’ that European regulation about the protection of personal data is superior to anywhere else in the World – right?  Well, it seems that data protection is more of a fig leaf than a practical reality, at least to judge by recent news.

Back in 2005, in the UK, the Financial Services Authority (they regulate banks and financial institutions trading in the UK) fined the Nationwide Building Society just under £1 million ($2 million) for having a laptop bang full of customer personal data and failing to do anything at all about it – for months.

Just this month (June 07 for the more pedantic) the UK Information Commissioner (that’s the guy – sorry, person, who has governance over if companies are behaving themselves with respect to processing customer personal data) was compelled to state, “I call for stronger powers to allow my office to carry out inspections and audits to ensure organisations are complying with the Data Protection Act. At present, we must gain consent before inspecting a company for compliance.”

Now is that some kind of a joke or what?  It seems that in the UK (and I have to say that this may not be representative of the status in all EU member states) the Financial Services Authority has teeth whilst the Information Commissioner has balls.

But the Information Commissioner this week noted that the French company Orange and the British company Littlewoods can be invited to “sign a formal agreement to comply with the principles of the Data Protection Act or face further action and prosecution.”  Presumably this is after the companies have been found not doing so?

Now, you probably do not need the brain of a planet to figure out what will motivate companies and their managements to get something done.  If you get fined £1 million, and if you don’t fix it the damage may get seriously worse.  So you get your anatomy in gear and make damn certain you don’t get fined again.  But if all you have to do is sign a letter then there is no real urgency to improve.

So maybe in Europe money is more important than privacy?