As can be the case, we have been rather overtaken by recent events – in my case an office move – actually only about a mile as the (insert the feathered creature of your preference) flies. 

Fortunately our office move really did happen over a weekend.  And whilst it had precisely zero impact on our customers – everything carried on running seamlessly – that was not entirely the case for us staff.

Take me (please), for instance.  For reasons that are so obvious I am not going to explain them, my shaver cord happened to be on my desk when the removers came.  That is the last time I, or anyone else saw it.  So the emerging beard can be explained by the fact that I am too tight to buy a new Braun top of the range machine without a fight!

And what has that got to do with information security?

Well, during last week the UK government published a whole series of reports (on the same day, so you know they had saved up all the bad news for a moment when they hoped nobody was watching) on how major government departments like the Inland Revenue (HMRC in the UK and IRS in the US) and the Ministry of Defense had managed to lose millions of people’s personal data and that none of it was protected in any way, shape or form.

The major thrust of the reports was that management did not consider that the personal data they held in trust was their responsibility to protect and therefore they did not see any need to spend any money at all on protecting it.

A second, and perhaps even more dangerous revelation was that government collected information that it subsequently used for purposes that were not consistent with what it had been collected it for. 

It is, of course, now normal that neither government ministers nor civil service officials will be exposed as charlatans or hypocrites, and that nobody will have their careers ended because they clearly failed to live up to the standards (moral, ethical, documented or expected) that they pretended were in force.  Governments and their officials should not pretend surprise when the electorate ignore them – if nobody is accountable then who cares who gets elected?

Well, with guidance like that from on high, what hope is there for the rest of us?

Usually we look to governments and big industry to show the way in both corporate and civil behaviour.  After all, they make the law, and they enforce that law.

But right now their governance is, to put it mildly, severely lacking.  If, to quote a very famous film, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” then why should we believe them when they talk about Copyright and similar protections?  It looks like a load of irrelevance, and anyone wanting information protection will have to go with what they can get.  There’s no point in waiting for the prognostications of the governments, or the divinations of standards bodies (international or industry led) because it is totally clear that the leaders are not interested.

And that brings me back to the power cord.  Nobody at the removers is interested in my problem.  So I am going to have to sort it out for myself – and the beard itches!