This week the Economist publishes an excellent article describing the ambivalent attitude of the British Public towards Civil Liberties and the Surveillance Society. It could be, but is not, summarised as: "We want to be looked after but do not trust the systems".

On May 15th I promised to blog again on the conclusions from the session I chaired at the European Commission workshop in Bled on social inclusion, ethics, the "forced" use of e-government services and "digital citizens rights". These have no official status, they but an extract from my report back to a plenary but ...

"Banks slip through virus loophole" was the headline for an article by Danny Bradbury in the Guardian last week. This began: "Is my money safe? A quiet rule change allows British banks to refuse to compensate the victims of online fraud if they do not have "up-to-date antivirus and spyware and a personal firewall"  

Lloyds TSB recently announced that the move of two thirds of their ICT staff to India was not to save money. The UK throughput of ICT graduates has halved over past five years, is now below that in 1996 and is about to fall further. IR 35 led to the exodus of many of the most able and ambitious independent consultants. Today we see mounting pressures to address our increasing skills shortages (quality even more than quantity) by allowing in more immigrants.