“Information is the best disinfectant”

I went to an excellent talk recently by well known English politician Tony Benn as part of the Lichfield Literature Festival. One quotation he provided was the inspiration and title for this blog post

“Information is the best disinfectant”.

The statement on its own may not make sense, but was used in the context of explaining how the publication of information on the abuse of the parliamentary expenses system by MPs both highlighted the problem and created the solution. Once MPs realised that any abuses would be made public, and that their viability as an elected politician may be compromised, many started to voluntarily repay expenses that may have been inappropriately claimed.

For those not familiar with the story, the image above is a “duck house” claimed on parliamentary expenses by Sir Peter Viggers. Not surprisingly, he did not stand in the 2010 election!

So what does all this have to do with data quality?

Similarities between data quality issues and computer security security approaches?

I went to a very informative presentation last night by Professor Mark Ryan of Birmingham University. He is a specialist in computer security and the pitfalls of different approaches to computer architecture. It was a thought provoking presentation, particularly Mark’s views that a lot of current computer security issues stem from a potentially misguided desire by Microsoft to make platforms open and to allow automation of tasks.