Police keep millions of innocent people on file who dial 999 to report a crime | Mail Online

[Judy]

What do people think about the following article?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1343404/Police-millions-innocent-people-file-dial-999-report-crime.html

[Simon]

nothing to see here.

*every* organisation keeps records about it's customers for the purpose of monitoring and improving their customer service. 

there is so much data held about you in private corporate databases (every financial transaction, telephone call, web search, web site visited, facebook friend, email contact) that if the powers that be ever decided to use that data for "bad purposes", we're all already so screwed it really isn't worth losing sleep over the police storing a bit more.

[Judy Jansons]

That sounds rather defeatist! I thought this group was intended for
discussion on how things could be improved in the UK!

I think that there are significant differences between the police
retaining records and other companies, some of which are:

- There are legislative safeguards over what information a company can
keep and how long for. I don't suppose these safeguards always work,
but they do go some way to help protect information. I am not sure
how much of this applies to police use of personal information.

- The police have powers that other companies do not have, so the
scope for misusing information available to them is greater.

- The knowledge that police retain personal information from members
of the public will be another factor in dissuading people from
"getting involved" with the police by either reporting crimes as a
victim or by being prepared to stand as a witness to crimes. This
will inevitably make the world a worse place to live in.

[Simon]

On 3 January 2011 12:40, Judy Jansons <judy.j...@gmail.com> wrote:

That sounds rather defeatist!  I thought this group was intended for
discussion on how things could be improved in the UK!

It wasn't intended to be defeatist. I don't personally care if the police log my details if I report something to them.

The article was a tragically transparent bit of stirring by the Daily Mail. "Innocent People" have their details recorded every day by a wide variety of organisations.

The police are effectively a customer service organisation. How else are they going to be able to manage and respond to customer issues effectively?

If we want to improve the UK, we need to worry about and address the issues that need improving, not make life difficult for organisations that are trying to improve things.

(I don't think I'm naive - we need to be watchful of our government, our politicians and the police but they are not "evil oppressors" who's every move needs to be feared and opposed.)

 

I think that there are significant differences between the police
retaining records and other companies, some of which are:

- There are legislative safeguards over what information a company can
keep and how long for.  I don't suppose these safeguards always work,
but they do go some way to help protect information.  I am not sure
how much of this applies to police use of personal information.

The legal safeguards are a joke I'm afraid. They might have been applicable in 1980 but we have gone way beyond that. Again, personally I don't care.

If you are on Facebook as one example, you have essentially made a declaration that you're prepared to exchange your "exclusive personal privacy" for the benefit of improved social networking. 

The same applies in many other areas of "commercial life".

It's not about "evil oppressors" mis-using this information, it's about companies using it too sell us more stuff!

 

- The police have powers that other companies do not have, so the
scope for misusing information available to them is greater.

The police are also watched very carefully and have greater controls on their actions. Any bad organisation would have *vast* scope for abuse of power / data with no controls (unless they were caught)

 

- The knowledge that police retain personal information from members
of the public will be another factor in dissuading people from
"getting involved" with the police by either reporting crimes as a
victim or by being prepared to stand as a witness to crimes.  This
will inevitably make the world a worse place to live in.

If you're worried about keeping your identity secret, most (all?) police forces have anonymous crimestoppers numbers that you can call where presumably, your identity is not recorded.

[Kalvis]

Just for the record, the police are not watched very carefully, as
most people who make a complaint soon find out.

On Jan 3, 1:18 pm, Simon <slg...@gmail.com> wrote:

> > > On 3 January 2011 09:23, Judy <judy.jans...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > >> What do people think about the following article?
>

> >http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1343404/Police-millions-innoc...