Curiouser and Curiouser! on pledge-bank

Pledge

Thu, 06 Jul 2006 13:15:17 +0100

No i'm not giving up alchohol or leeches. This is just my public realisation that a pledge is no use if nobody signs up because you didn't tell them about it.

A little while ago I used PledgeBank to create a pledge asking people to test the UK Data Protection Act's Subject Access Request mechanism. The idea is to see how well the system works for us individuals, what the process is like, and what sort of data you get back. I'm going to send mine to my cell phone company, Orange, but any supplier is fine.

Unfortunately I've failed, spectularly, to actually tell anyone about the pledge and am now trying to make amends.

Please; If you are interested in privacy, in what companies think they know about you (and the information they will process in making decisions about you), and in what you can do about it then I urge you to take the pledge. If you sign up you aren't committing yourself to anything arduous and, in return, you may learn something very interesting.

On the other hand if you don't think this is a worthwhile exercise I'd really like to hear why. Knowing what they know is of considerable interest to me and I'm keen to understand if that is (or will be) universal. Are there are other perspectives out there to be heard?

Pledge-9

Fri, 07 Jul 2006 11:26:00 +0100

Today my pledge is in much better shape. Nine people are now signed up and I feel happier.

My special thanks to Suw of the Open Rights Group (and other fame) for not only blogging it, but also putting it out to the ORG mailing list. That yielded quite a few sign-ups. My thanks also go to folks like Luke Razzell and Tim Kitchin of Glasshouse Partnership for putting the word out.

A few people have told me that they think this is a good wheeze and it's really only the beginning... a prelude to a bigger event.

Lastly my apologies to all those of a presbytarian upbringing for any mental distress caused :-)

Success

Thu, 20 Jul 2006 12:07:11 +0100

Well now... my Data Protection Act pledge at PledgeBank just went over the top with 4 days to go! It would be great to get a few extra so if you were thinking of signing up you still can.

Over the next couple of days I will assemble my subject access request and document the process here on C&C.