Saturday 3 December 2011

The ICO’s twelve days of Christmas


It’s getting to that special time of the year when differences are set aside and we data protection folk gather together for the Christmas parties. People whose views are usually rejected with distain are treated in a wholly different light when they congregate with various beverages in their hands.

Old arguments are forgotten as we all realise that, within this data protection community, what binds us together is that we do all care. OK, we may care about slightly different things, but the main thing is that we do care.

Fundamental rights, respecting each other, dignity and a broad outlook on life. That’s what binds us data protection folk together.

We also like a good sing song once in a while, to relieve the tedium of working out whether Binding Corporate Rules will be a truly effective and scalable way of legitimising international personal data flows. Or how we are going to get the people we advise to take data protection issues as seriously as we do.

As its getting close to the holiday season, here’s one little ditty that is only appropriate when there are a group of people whose throats have been generously lubricated and no-one has any inhibitions left:

On the twelfth day of Christmas,
Our chums in Wilmslow sent to me
Twelve audit recommendations,
Eleven blogs on breaches,
Ten more assessments,
Nine press releases,
Eight FOI reminders,
Seven voicemail messages,
Six monetary penalties,
Five SAR’s
Four draft undertakings,
Three renewal reminders,
Two codes of practice,
And an email that I wasn’t supposed to see!


Image credit:

For those of you who won’t be traveling to Paris to enjoy the Xmas decorations along the Champs Elysees this year, they look like this!

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