Watchdog barks at EU plan to hand asylum-seeker database to cops The EU's privacy watchdog has slammed plans to grant police access to Europe's database of asylum seekers' fingerprints. In an opinion [PDF] published by the EU's data protection supervisor (EDPS) on Wednesday, Peter Hustinx hit out at the European Commission's move, claiming it represented an "erosion of fundamental rights". …
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Absconders getting free money and a nice house? [.... rest of bollockry stripped for brevity]"
Mr. AC, may I ask if by any chance have you ever, in your futile entire life, met an actual asylum seeker or refugee? If so, did he or she meet your above description in any way? Or was he or she perhaps working his balls off so he or she could build a future for him or herself and more importantly, their offspring, as opposed to, say, getting another credit to buy a bigger TV set or a newer car, despite the previous one being perfectly fine?
Perhaps you need to stop reading the sensationalist press and get out a little more?
Just saying.
Of course, the police has a justifiable need (whatever the reason, sort of depends on the political weather at the time).
However, in order to make sure that the police and politicians involved are not wrongly identified, their data should be in the databases we build as well. As a matter of fact, I think this ought to become standard across the board. Anyone desiring access to a mass database anywhere should be entered into such database as a precaution against abuse.
It would serve two purposes: those who access the database will get a hell of a lot more careful with access controls and care of data extracted, but even more importantly, it may actually make them think before yet another excuse for sharing data originally collected with an entirely different purpose.
From a Data Protection perspective, any normal company holding such data would first have to seek permission of the original entrants. I can't see why those rules should not apply to government and law enforcement.
That bit about something to which police forces have access, being used "under very limited and specific circumstances", is a despicable lie.
To deal with those "limited and specific" circumstances, that's what the intelligence services are for, and police already can consult with them if they have genuine concerns about a specific person.
What would be interesting to know is which country or countries did propose opening up this data. Not the UK, by any remote chance, is it?
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