Google government and the Tories

When David Cameron spoke last month about "a new era of Google government" in an effort to sell his modern high tech trendy image of the future I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to it. It was just another soundbite but given his plans to cure the current government's national programme for IT in the NHS by scrapping it and handing our medical data to Google and Microsoft instead I probably should have taken notice. The British Medical Association are sufficiently concerned at the idea that they've issued a press statement expressing their worries about the security of web based database systems and warning of the need for very strong safeguards and the "highest possible standards for privacy, accuracy, security, and useability."

The Independent has picked up the story too, keen to emphasise the fact that David Cameron's "chief strategist, Steve Hilton, is married to Rachel Whetstone, Google's vice president of public policy and commumications."