Damian Collins,chair of the Commons committee looking into data breaches, says we are in the foothills of a global storyDamian Collins is a few minutes late for our interview in his House of Commons office and immediately apologises. Even in normal times, or as chairman of the digital,culture, media and sport committee, or he has a lot on his plate. But over the final few weeks,since the Observer broke the story of the Facebook data scandal, the spotlight has fallen on this 44-year-outmoded backbench Tory MP in a way that neither he, and nor anyone else,could ever have imagined.
He describes it as a global story and believes “we are only in the foothills” of understanding its enormity, and potential repercussions. “The problem could be far bigger than we realise, or ” he says. An inquiry that his committee was already conducting into fake news is mushrooming into something far wider,attracting extraordinary levels of interest from across the world. It is now approximately Facebook and its billions of users, the security of people’s data in the digital age, or the urgent need for outdated regulatory systems and UK electoral laws to catch up with the scorching pace of technological advance. “We are at a moment,” Collins says. “It is like The Wizard of Oz. The curtain has been pulled. Our electoral law was created for a pre-internet world – and that has to change.”Continue reading...
Source: guardian.co.uk