Tough on data misuse, tough on the causes of data misuse: A review of New Labour's approach to information security and regulating the misuse of digital information (1997–2010)

Abstract

New Labour was a description of a particular approach to government of the British Labour Party, which was in power in the United Kingdom between 1997 and 2010. While this government initially envisaged an end to the social causes of misdemeanours, its actions led to a greater number of laws on the statute books creating thousands of statutory offences. A small number of these had direct effects on the number of computer related offences that were able to be prosecuted. This paper reviews these laws, and the role of legal systems in responding to the increasing number of misdemeanours that are occurring in computer environments for which New Labour's approach of creating more statutory offences has not addressed.