I recently had an unsurprizingly disappointing experience with the Government’s e-Petitions; specifically, the one concerning ID cards. The petition was summarily closed and a ‘personal’ reply from Tony was posted, and e-mailed to signatories. The reply makes it clear that ID cards will be going ahead, because they can catch some criminals and won’t cost much (honest). Nowhere does it address concerns that the police are to be given free reign to rummage through the biometrics to find criminals, that your details will forcibly be added to the National Register when you get a passport whether or not you object, that there are no provisions yet advanced to govern the future use or ‘sale’ of your data by other ‘approved’ groups (‘remember the selling of the Electoral Register data?) or worst of all, that no large-scale project has proven that it can keep detailed personal information secure for any sensible timescale. For all these reasons, and more, the PM’s reply was simply fobbing off the signatories with the same-old same-old.
So, it’s very nice to discover that some people do listen to petitions. Dell is running an on-line petition called IdeaStorm, and they’ve quickly amassed a few very good suggestions with lots of attention. What’s marvellous is that Dell have responded to these very quickly and positively. I for one, look forward to buying my Linux-compliant, top-end laptop from Dell, and having them carbon-offset its construction.
UK Government: 0; Dell: 1.