Abstract
This chapter highlights the key difference between those who abolished population registration in Britain after the war and those who later wanted to reintroduce it. It explains this by showing how these later political actors wanted to standardise, centralise and link data to intervene in the day-to-day lives of the British due to an increased tempo of biopolitical thinking. It shows how these data plans became increasingly difficult with the advent of the privacy campaign and how government consistently sought to deflect attention away from its paper-based records to turn debates about data into a discussion of the technical safety of computers. It demonstrates how this thinking underpinned the 1984 Data Protection Act, and how the issues discussed in this period (1936–1984) are still relevant.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Manton, K. (2019). Conclusion. In: Population Registers and Privacy in Britain, 1936—1984. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02753-7_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02753-7_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-02752-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-02753-7
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)