As I understand, '[f]ingerprint, DNA and arrest history records were deleted', but it's fine because 'the wiped records were those of people arrested and released when no further action was taken'.
If the police cannot be trusted to put basic data protection measures in place (such as backups), perhaps they should not keep biometric data about people that have done nothing wrong[0]?
[0]: more accurately, have not been charged with wrongdoing, meaning either there was insufficient evidence, or prosecution was not deemed to be in the public interest.
Or they have been processed, not charged with any wrongdoing, but they have not applied to have their records deleted under the post-2006 "Exceptional Case" procedure or post-2015 "Record Deletion" procedure. [0]
Or maybe they just did not yet turn 100 years of age, when the expunge is supposed to happen automatically.
The idea that someone who has been wronged by the criminal justice system should then be required to understand the consequences and make a special application just to have the record set straight is invidious, to say the least.
No normal organisation processing personal data gets to keep whatever they feel like, however unjustified, and only remove it under sufferance and on specific request. That wasn't even appropriate before the GDPR came into effect, and it's clearly prohibited by law now if there was any doubt before.
So why should governments get special privileges in this respect? There could hardly be a more serious case of processing personal data than a database used by police and security services that have exceptional legal powers with the potential to destroy someone's life. The argument that it's necessary for any sort of legitimate policing or security purpose when we're talking specifically about individuals who were not charged or who were acquitted at trial is tenuous at best.
Our governments and courts are on the wrong side of this issue. They're so blinded by some combination of fear, paranoia and the power of modern technologies that they seem to have forgotten the moral imperatives that everyone should be treated fairly and equally before the law and that we are supposed to be living in a free country.
It wasn't just people released with no further action. From elsewhere in the article:
The records are linked to police investigations that were terminated before charge (No Further Action or NFA cases) or to those where an individual had been acquitted at court.
Instead of complaining about "huge dangers for public safety", why isn't the Opposition asking why people who have been through potentially traumatic and potentially damaging experiences within our criminal justice system but who were never found to have done anything wrong in the eyes of the law still have deeply personal data like fingerprints and DNA on file at all?
It looks like Labour are completely on the wrong side of this one, and someone has put out a knee-jerk press release to try to score political points before thinking it through. I'm surprised, because Starmer (Labour's leader) usually comes across as quite cautious and reasonable about legal matters. He was a human rights lawyer and then the DPP (the head of our public prosecution service) before moving into politics, and I would have expected a very different position here.
If the police cannot be trusted to put basic data protection measures in place (such as backups), perhaps they should not keep biometric data about people that have done nothing wrong[0]?
[0]: more accurately, have not been charged with wrongdoing, meaning either there was insufficient evidence, or prosecution was not deemed to be in the public interest.
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