THE wording is deceptively mild. But the impact of the Data Protection Commissioner’s ruling on the five breaches committed by Guernsey Police is substantial.

Not only was the level of the force’s involvement with PubWatch wholly wrong, the way the scheme was being operated was so outside of what is acceptable that it remains suspended at least eight months after the commissioner’s withering verdict.

There are two aspects to this matter. The first is the debt islanders owe to robust, independent scrutiny with the power to hold the highest echelons to account. They are few and far between in Guernsey and the work of the Data Protection Commissioner is a welcome exception.

Complaints about authority here are notoriously difficult to pursue and those involving police are bedevilled by a total lack of transparency or openness.

While this may have been a complex matter,  the suspicion is that the length of time taken in part reflects the difficulty in prising the relevant information out of official files.

The second concern is how a law enforcement agency came to be on the wrong side of the fence in this way. In other words, who thought it a good idea to take over PubWatch and, to stretch the commissioner’s words, convert it into Magistrate’s Court Mark II?

Guernsey Police are well aware of data protection issues. They have used them – wrongly – against the media to restrict access to information, which led to complaints to the Bailiff’s Chambers.

The States own core guidance on the principles of data protection make it plain that the way PubWatch operated was pretty clearly in breach, yet the mischief continued.

Had it not been for the complaint, as the commissioner says, he might never have become aware of how serious the problem was.

What we don’t know, of course, is how many other questionable decisions have been reached and what led to the muddle over police involvement.

PubWatch is inherently a good scheme – if done properly. This incident, unfortunately, has damaged the scheme and the local force and islanders have been denied an adequate explanation of why it happened.