@tryptameanie 974037 wrote:
My dad’s brother got into computers in a big way in the 60/70s and learned languages like FORTAN and PASCAL, then went into the civil service which apparently carried with it a security clearance (am actually now tinking he may well have been at GCHQ….) worked for prison services at durham running whatewver it is that requires an IT genius to keep criminals behind bars. Have actuallyheard a few stories about high profile stuff he’s done and am thining there’s a tiny possibility GL may know him as they seem t have tread similar paths.
Most likely the CCTA (Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency) or DTELS (Home Office Department of Telecommunications) and maybe one of their successors (all of them got privatised/outsourced since the 1980s).
They did of course work alongside GCHQ but in reality Cheltenham was a relatively small part of public sector IT in the UK until recently; apart from its functions obviously attracting curiosity it stands out as it remains in public ownership (even when heavier stuff like atomic missiles is part privatised!)
The purpose of most public sector workers / contractors security clearances often isn’t anything sinister but to remind them not to divulge peoples personal info (as well as govt policies) to hostile actors; much information in health and social care is classified as part of EU data protection laws.
Your relative may well have ended up working on a database project that was trying to use algorithms to assess why the inmates ended up inside in the first place (offending patterns, age of first offences etc) – possibly alongside other similar European countries. The Home Office were doing this well into Blair’s time and maybe still do so today albeit with vastly reduced research budgets.
Even if these things are done for the common good they are still controversial (especially in the 80s before the EU data protection laws; in my former home town Thames Valley Police and Social Services had direct access to a high school teenagers personal files without having to ask the headteacher or parents, let alone the young person involved and they had no right to view what was on them).
hence all the shadowy secrecy – although things appear to have changed for the better nowadays (not sure how much long for in this country with the present government in power.
I’ve already seen public released papers disappear from the Home OffiIce website although it is more the unwanted effects of austerity measures than a deliberate attempt to conceal anything (unless it was to try and hide the fact that austerity measures often lead to more crime…)
