First thing that got me thinking was Facebook's recent upgrades to share information from other websites with my friends. I've noticed other sites including more social integration too. I'm starting to see the benefits of sharing these things, though there are a few pitfalls of your information being totally public but then it is already fairly public.
The second was the recent coalition government in the UK announcing the axe of a number of databases due to their cost and the main fact being its duplicate information to other databases.
I then received this email as a joke at how bureaucratic things are:
Dear Sirs,
I'm in the process of renewing my passport, and still cannot believe this. How is it that Sky Television has my address and telephone number and knows that I bought a bleeding satellite dish from them back in 1977, and yet, the Government is still asking me where I was bloody born and on what date.
For Christ sakes, do you guys do this by hand? My birth date you have on my pension book, and it is on all the income tax forms I've filed for the past 30 years. It is on my National Health card, my driving license, my car insurance, on the last eight damn passports I've had, on all those stupid customs declaration forms I've had to fill out before being allowed off the plane over the last 30 years, and all those insufferable census forms.
Would somebody please take note, once and for all, that my mother's name is Mary Anne, my father's name is Robert and I'd be abso-fucking-lutely astounded if that ever changed between now and when I die!!!!!!
I apologise, I'm really pissed off this morning. Between you an' me, I've had enough of this bullshit! You send the application to my house, then you ask me for my fucking address !!!!
What is going on? Do you have a gang of Neanderthal arseholes workin' there? Look at my damn picture. Do I look like Bin Laden? I don't want to dig up Yasser Arafat, for shit sakes. I just want to go and park my arse on some sandy beach somewhere. And would someone please tell me, why would you give a shit whether I plan on visiting a farm in the next 15 days? If I ever got the urge to do something weird to a chicken or a goat, believe you me, you'd be the last fucking people I'd want to tell!
Well, I have to go now, 'cause I have to go to the other end of the poxy city to get another fucking copy of my birth certificate, to the tune of £30. Would it be so complicated to have all the services in the same spot to assist in the issuance of a new passport the same day?? Nooooooooooooo, that'd be too damn easy and maybe makes sense. You'd rather have us running all over the fuckin' place like chickens with our heads cut off, then have to find some arsehole to confirm that it's really me on the damn picture - you know, the one where we're not allowed to smile?! (bureaucratic fuckin' morons) Hey, do you know why we couldn't smile if we wanted to? Because we're totally pissed off!
Signed
An Irate Citizen.
I'm in the process of renewing my passport, and still cannot believe this. How is it that Sky Television has my address and telephone number and knows that I bought a bleeding satellite dish from them back in 1977, and yet, the Government is still asking me where I was bloody born and on what date.
For Christ sakes, do you guys do this by hand? My birth date you have on my pension book, and it is on all the income tax forms I've filed for the past 30 years. It is on my National Health card, my driving license, my car insurance, on the last eight damn passports I've had, on all those stupid customs declaration forms I've had to fill out before being allowed off the plane over the last 30 years, and all those insufferable census forms.
Would somebody please take note, once and for all, that my mother's name is Mary Anne, my father's name is Robert and I'd be abso-fucking-lutely astounded if that ever changed between now and when I die!!!!!!
I apologise, I'm really pissed off this morning. Between you an' me, I've had enough of this bullshit! You send the application to my house, then you ask me for my fucking address !!!!
What is going on? Do you have a gang of Neanderthal arseholes workin' there? Look at my damn picture. Do I look like Bin Laden? I don't want to dig up Yasser Arafat, for shit sakes. I just want to go and park my arse on some sandy beach somewhere. And would someone please tell me, why would you give a shit whether I plan on visiting a farm in the next 15 days? If I ever got the urge to do something weird to a chicken or a goat, believe you me, you'd be the last fucking people I'd want to tell!
Well, I have to go now, 'cause I have to go to the other end of the poxy city to get another fucking copy of my birth certificate, to the tune of £30. Would it be so complicated to have all the services in the same spot to assist in the issuance of a new passport the same day?? Nooooooooooooo, that'd be too damn easy and maybe makes sense. You'd rather have us running all over the fuckin' place like chickens with our heads cut off, then have to find some arsehole to confirm that it's really me on the damn picture - you know, the one where we're not allowed to smile?! (bureaucratic fuckin' morons) Hey, do you know why we couldn't smile if we wanted to? Because we're totally pissed off!
Signed
An Irate Citizen.
P.S. Remember what I said above about the picture and getting someone to confirm that it's me? Well, my family has been in this country since 1776 ......... I have served in the military for something over 30 years and have had full security clearances over 25 of those years enabling me to undertake highly secretive missions all over the world. ......... However, I have to get someone 'important' to verify who I am - you know, someone like my doctor WHO WAS BORN AND RAISED IN PAKISTAN !
This letter got me thinking to when I recently moved house and how many different databases I had to change my address in just to get bills, letters and how much that actually cost my already stretched bank balance.
Why do we have to duplicate so much information, why cant they be kept on a central database and information released at our request to relevant companies, government departments. The main details I always have to fill out for any form even a job application are as follows:
- Name
- Date of Birth
- Address
- Phone numbers - home, work, mobile
- Email address
- Work information
- Next of Kin
- Security question - normally mothers maiden name, first school or first pet.
So just think how much money each of these so called databases costs. One database I found googling, cost £225 million the proposed government ID cards would have cost £4 billion to kick off. All of these could be condensed. Id rather change my details in one database saving me time and money rather than waist as I did moving house then spending weeks changing my details. I'd also prefer having one ID card that's my National Insurance, passport, driving license, NHS number and donor card the five separate cards/books cost more money and waists more resources than one ID card being updated every few years.
So the proof is our information is everywhere and it does cost a lot of money having separate databases and cards. I do agree my core info shouldn't be publicly advertised to outside friends and family. Even some of that should just be known to me but at the end of the day the information is out there and its costing me more money I could be spending or saving that would help boost the UK economy.
