PubWatch barred over data protection breach
Thursday 26th August 2010, 2:30PM BST.
GUERNSEY police breached five data protection principles involving one individual, an independent local watchdog has ruled.
And Data Protection commissioner Dr Peter Harris (pictured) confirmed that the incident could even have broken human rights laws if his team had not stepped in.
The damning verdict is delivered in this month’s Billet d’Etat, which contains the commission’s 2009 annual report, but which will not be debated unless States members specifically request it.
The complaint against police was a complex matter relating to the operation of the island’s PubWatch scheme. The investigation started in 2008, but was not completed until last year.
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You would’nt get the chance to be put on Pub Watch up the Plaza ,John & Boh Boh run a tight ship, rough justice perhaps,no health n safety requirement with Silent Shaun on the door.
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We need educated Police that realise that the law applies to them aswell.
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Andy:
Oh Andy, what a silly comment. This whole incident is about a piece of legislation (Data Protection) that has just prevented the Police from helping licensed premises to protect themselves.
The public lose here, and no one else. We should be behind the police, not behind our keyboards criticising.
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Oh Truth Man, what a silly comment! The Data Protection Act doesn’t prevent the sharing; it makes sure it’s carried out correctly.
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Truth Man
Should the law not apply to the police then? When Joe Public falls foul of some silly law that many people think shouldn’t be in existence, it always “the law’s the law blah blah blah”. Surely that should be the case for law enforcers as well?
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You really have got it in for the Police haven’t you Andy thats the third silly remark you’ve made in just over a week.
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Oh Nic, what a silly comment!! It is called the Data Protection Law (not Act unless you are in the UK), and it does prevent, in many cases, the sharing of information. In fact the default position of the application of the Law is that information will not be shared.
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Phil:
Of course the law should apply to the police and I did not suggest otherwise.
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Truth Man
I see – the law should apply to them, but when they break it we should be behind them and not criticise. That makes a whole lot of sense!
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Truth Man
I’m sorry old bean, but in your desperation to better other posters you have rendered your initial argument invalid!!
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Prostate Problems (& Phil):
How exactly? Perhaps you need to re-read.
I made the point that this legislation has PREVENTED the police from helping licensed premises to protect themselves. At no stage did I suggest they should be allowed to break the law, quite the opposite in fact since I acknowledge that the Data Protection Law has put a stop to the practice.
My post was in direct response to Andy’s post where saw this as an opportunity to berate the police. I do not see it that way – this is an opportunity to look at whether the Data Protection Law is actually acting in the best interests of us, the public.
This is not about me rendering my argument invalid, this is about me seeing the opportunity here in a very different way than Andy did. Sadly, Prostate Problems so far has only seen an opportunity to challenge another poster – perhaps you would like to have an opinion on the actual topic Prostate Problems?
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well le friquet garden centre sent out an email with nearly 1200 email addresses on it. so what’s the problem
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Ok Truth Man, I’ll break it down for you, if you cant see where you are arguing yourself in circles then I dispair.
You said…. “It is called the Data Protection Law (not Act unless you are in the UK), and it does prevent, in many cases, the sharing of information. In fact the default position of the application of the Law is that information will not be shared.”
(The principles of this law have been breached…. by the police)
You also said “We should be behind the police, not behind our keyboards criticising.”
(the very same police who broke the law)
“Of course the law should apply to the police and I did not suggest otherwise”
Hmmmmmm!
I’ll paraphrase for effect “We should be behind the police”……. “the law should apply to the police ”
again…. Hmmmmmmm!
You want my opinion truth man????
The problem with principles based laws is that they can be open to interpretation, and when you have people who often beleive they are above the law, interpreting a principles based law, they will more often than not get it wrong, because the likliehood is, they dont understand the spirit and purpose of the principles.
This is what has happened here!
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Prostate Problems:
Do you look at all comments with such a narrow field of view?!
I said “We should be behind the police…”
You read (I can only assume) “We should let the police continue to break the rules”.
The two sentences are not the same, and the latter (your interpretation), is most certainly not what I was trying to imply. I can only apologise if I have made myself unclear.
Let me break it down for you to clarify:
“We should be behind the police…”
Meaning “Why see this incident as a chance to berate the police. For me, this is about a law that has been written that does not always act in our best interests”.
Regarding your opinion, it’s an interesting view. I personally don’t think the police believe they are above the law. I think they have most likely made a mistake. If they thought they were above the law, surely they would continue with an illegal practice once it was pointed out the them?
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Oops, last sentence should read :
“If they thought they were above the law, surely they would continue with an illegal practice once it was pointed out to them?”
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Truth Man, the Data Protection legislation does not ‘prevent police from helping licencees to protect themselves’, indeed it allows the sharing of data for crime prevention purposes. It does however protect all individuals from misuse of their data and therefore is absolutely necessary in my opinion.
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The Data Protection legislation is written in such ‘Gobbledegook’ terms that other than those whose full time job is to work with it I doubt that any other body,including the Police,fully understand it
Which is of course why it is used so often by States departments to decline to answer straight forward questions
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Dave:
There is a dispensation to the default position for crime prevention purposes, however this is a narrow enough definition (and is somewhat open to interpretation) that in this case the Data Protection Law has prevented the police from helping licensees to help themselves.
However, I do agree – controls are necessary. I reiterate the thrust of my posts, and that is the question “Has the law acted in the best interests of the public in this case?” I believe it has not. The only winners here are the few people who the police felt licensees should be wary of.
Think of this: The police in the UK held information and intelligence on Ian Huntley that was not shared due to the Data Protection Act – they were criticised for this.
In this case the police have attempted to share information and intelligence with licensees to protect you and I – still they are being criticised. They are in a total no win situation and in both of those examples Data Protection has played a part.
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Having read the actual report on this issue. I was left with considerable sympathy for the Guernsey Police.
There can be no doubt that the Police were acting in what they considered the best interest of those who were vulnerable.
Where the police failed was in failing to tick the right boxes. Their failings were technical breaches of the Data Protection Law.
There are those who will feel the technical rights and wrongs of the Data Protection Law such as information controller etc are the key issues.
Others amongst us will feel that the protection of the vulnerable is of more importance than ticking the right boxes.
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The police breached 5 out of 8 principles to such an extent it was felt human rights may also be breached. This is not a case of failing to tick the boxes, cross the t’s and dot the i’s. This is clearly an extremely serious matter. What other breaches may have occurred? Would anything have changed without the intervention of the independent commissioner?
If the police are unable to comply with the law, how can they enforce it?
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Stephen John, if compliance with the Data Protection Law is simply a box ticking exercise, why has non-compliance recently been made a criminal rather than a civil offence? Hopefully people may now start to take it seriously.
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Ellie
If the right boxes had been ticked and the right paper work existed the individual who complained would not have had a case against the Guernsey Police.
It is of course a personal opinion if the failure to tick the right boxes constitutes a serious failing.
The fact remains that if the paperwork was right the individual would not have had a sustainable complaint.
Time for common sense to prevail.
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Stephen John, depsite the complaint being upheld by an independent investigation, you are assuming that if the police had ticked a couple of boxes there would have been no case against them, and that the ban was justified – these are very big assumptions!
What about individuals who may have been placed on the scheme WITHOUT justification. Guilty until proven innocent?…. oh no, guilty even then!
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GT
No I am not assuming. I am referring to the facts that chastise the Guernsey Police for technical breachers of the data protection laws. If the correct boxes had been ticked and the corrrect protocols had been followed, then the one person to whom the complaint refers woould nit have had grounds for complaint.
So, not big assumtions, just comment on the facts of the case.
So far as you last paragraph is cncerned the case in question only refers to one person. My comments apply to the facts of the case in question, not anti police speculation.
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Ellie:
The police do not enforce the law, the courts do. The police merely do their best to represent the law in dealing with offences and incidents to the best of their ability within the confines of our legislation (take a look at some of it one day!).
They do not always get it right, but they are human beings and people would do well to remember that. Do you ever make mistakes? Ah, I thought so.
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Truth Man
I’m afraid you have that wrong, the police absolutely do enforce the law, I think you may be getting confused with sentencing maybe, or deciding upon guilt?
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Truth Man, you make a very good point. The police should NOT be handing out punishments, merely upholding the law as it stands, however the Commissioner stated that the police were involved in issuing bans as punishments rather than as a deterrent. I completely agree that bans should be issued by a court as required (as they are in some cases) and NOT by the police.
(Ps. the definition of law enforcement…. ‘The police are persons empowered to enforce the law, protect property and reduce civil disorder’.)
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The police here seem to try to enforce the law at times. On other occassions they merely stand by and watch it being broken.
They claim to have a policy of prevention but they are very inconsistant (even selective) as to when they behave in a manner that would prevent laws being broken.
Further more many of the cases they get through the courts here would be thrown elsewhere.
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Truth Man
They do their best and to the best of their ability,
How can you be so sure of this???
I can tell you that in years gone past there has been a good few of them that should have been locked up themselves.
Ive witnessed bullying,aggravating youngsters,and been assulted on four ocasions when i was a kid.
I hope things have changed since.
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