Thank the stars for (near) perfect recall. I dont have the ability to snapshot pages of information just by looking at them. But, information does persist for a very long time nonetheless.

It's handy sometimes. ;-)

Destination: Hackington

I was at college a few years before the Millennium, doing an NVQ3 in IT. That's a fairly comprehensive qualification, I'd already aced the first two modules and was about to secure the Prize... That was an actual job at the end of a placement, teaching mature students how to use computers.

I'd been given a room with four students and access to a bunch of second-hand machines which turned out to be pretty worthless, I had to scrounge up a fair bit so they ran WordPerfect for DOS, and some spreadsheet and database software. The students were PACT Trainees, Placement, Assessment, Counselling, Training - former manual labourers retraining because of injury to do office work, and all I had to do was teach them the basics. Their certificates gave me mine when they completed the course.

Flying colours, I had a basic teaching qualification under my belt and a position within the agency itself to take up, and then the agency was sold to Thompson, the cruise ship holiday people to use as in-house staff training. They didnt need a green IT teacher and I got booted unceremoniously back in the Dole queue. Real nice, but that happens...

Anyway, this was before the Millennium Act and Digital Rights Management had been ratified, but I studied them as part of the IT in a teaching role...

The Data Protection Act had a paragraph buried in it which read something like this.

• An individual has a right to the information held on him/her by an organisation at request.
• The organisation must comply with the request, and return a copy of that information on paper or CD.
• The organisation may charge up to £10 for the media and recovery costs, unless that organisation is a government agency, in which case it is free.
• The documents may be redacted to conceal sensitive information, but must be full and complete.
• The request is to be made to the Data Protection Officer of the organisation in writing.

That lot is now law, but it isnt well-known and organisations dont advertise who their DPO is. You have to ask, and then write to them.

The meeting

Well, the social worker looked a bit stressed, I dont think he was enjoying the meeting at all but I wasnt giving him a hard time myself. He made the mistake of admitting information exists; until now he's maintained that Social Services dont have any records. I'd warned him about the pile of ammunition I had that wouldnt shoot him, but fall on him if he didnt move a bit sharpish, and he still hasnt read this lot. Tch.

Informatics Andrew, I specialise in information itself, and the Truth is indeed Out There.

Apparently he has been denied access to the records, they are Archived and not for his eyes - or his supervisor's either from the looks of it.

Just wow, but like I said that information is mine, so I'm putting in a request for it so that the social worker can see whats in the box for himself. He seemed genuinely pleased about it too. Lol...

Ironically this isnt even the first time I've done this to them, but they dont learn very fast. Last time I went on their computers and downloaded the entire National Disabilities Act, which goes back to 1947 with all its amendments, and scoured it for the single sentence;

A disabled person has the right to a say in the manner and location of their care...

Which I then waved under their noses, along with a doctors report and AIME, which eventually led me to today, being dumped with all the responsibility and with no assistance or recompense.

Honestly, what a f*ing mess. Only a government organisation can let it get to this, any other profit-making organisation would have gone broke long ago no matter how entrenched they are.

Have you noticed there's also only one Monopolies Commission?