Just in case you missed it - and I nearly did - I feel I should draw your attention to a document issued by HM Treasury at the same time as the Pre-Budget Report that has been exciting all the British media so. It is the “Service Transformation Agreement” [pdf] setting out in fifty-eight pages a general vision and departmental service plans. The latter, forming the bulk of the document, explain how each government department will use “identity management” to collate and share information about citizens and businesses.

They will be led by the new Ministry of Justice introducing "measures to overcome current barriers to information sharing in the public sector". Those "barriers" are not mentioned in the document, but they are four, neatly pinned down by the MoJ when it was the plain old Department of Constitutional Affairs: 1) human rights law, especially the constructive privacy protections under Article 8 of the Convention, 2) the Data Protection Acts, 3) common law confidentiality, and 4) the fundamental rule of administrative law, ultra vires.