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| 18th April 2004 | LABELLED A CRIMINAL? |
Brian Grainger |
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In the dying embers of 2002 I alerted UK readers to how much snooping of personal data is going on, (Click here). Now we have news of just how wrong they can get it. The Criminal Records Bureau, (CRB), was set up to check out individuals who must have a criminal record check before they can be employed in certain areas, e.g. working with children. Despite the complaints against such systems by privacy campaigners, the mantra that usually comes from government sources is that you have nothing to fear if you have done nothing wrong. Oh, yeh! In response to a parliamentary question it was revealed that in the period 2003 and January 2004 the CRB linked 193 people to crimes INCORRECTLY. The Home Office says the mistakes are only a tiny percentage of the 2.5 million checks that were carried out. Try telling that to the 193 people that did not get, or were delayed in getting, the job they wanted! More and more our governments want to store personal information in databases that can be linked and accessed by all sorts of people. The more it continues, the more errors will be made. Working in percentages is wrong. It is no compensation to those unjustly penalised. Innocent until proven guilty was the way our justice system used to work. More and more, it is becoming justify you are innocent -as those 193 people found out last year. The source of information on which this item was based can be found at: |
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