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back to article Privacy chief OKs sharing criminal records if privacy tightened

Europe's privacy regulator has said that he will back a pan-European criminal records system only if specific data protection measures are put in place. Because the system deals with crime and security, EU data protection law does not currently apply to it. The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) Peter Hustinx has said …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Trials in absentia

    You missed the other British inspired attack on Europe, the trials in absentia.

    The proposal is that someone convicted in absentia *must* be released by the country they are in if the requesting authorities says they have been informed (or indirectly are assumed to be aware) of the case. Unverified, they simply check a box on a form.

    So country X will prosecute people in their absence then demand extradition. Apparently they could not extradite them for trial (or simply didn't try, they can post a letter then treat that as having informed them), making it easier to convict anyone in another country simply by not trying too hard to extradite them or inform them, then convicting them by default (because they're not at the trial), then extraditing them.

    Having insufficient money to go to the foreign country and defend yourself is not a defence to this. No court in your home country can stop this.

    So everyone in Europe will be exposed to the UK's legal system and it's current problems. The UK permits secret witnesses, heresay, preemptive seizure (i.e. punishment without judicial process) and other stuff incompatible with the EU Fundamental rights, so they're exposing the whole of Europe to the legal system of countries who don't abide by and haven't signed up to the EU Fundamental rights legislation.

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  2. Secretgeek
    Black Helicopters

    What time is it Mr Wolf?

    @'Trials...' I think you're missing the longer view here.

    How do you think Britain has ended up being the most surveilled society on the planet?

    Inch by inch, step by step, all the time saying 'This will make us better at catching the bad guys.'

    What time is it Mr Wolf?

    'It's time for me to introduce one more database to make sure you and the kiddies are safe from the bad people.'

    What time is it Mr Wolf?

    'It's time that we shared all that info with all those approved authorities that might want to see it.'

    What time is it Mr Wolf?

    'It's time to make sure that those people we feel might be harmful can be stopped.'

    What time is it Mr Wolf?

    'It's time for you to STOP ASKING QUESTIONS!'

    ..........

    Look around, just exactly how much better is this country than anywhere else? How much worse? I'm trying to avoid descending into some kind of paranoid rant here but if the problem is crime and we're told that the solution is surveillance (cameras, dna, datasbases etc), seeing that we have more of that now than ever in history shouldn't we expect a significantly lower rate of crime?

    And I'm not talking about the single digit percentage figures that every government likes to suck it's own dick over, I'm talking 10%, 20%, 50%. Obviously surveillance isn't doing that.

    (As an aside, I do know that there are probably thousands of examples where CCTV has been a positive influence.)

    Which leaves us with another question. If surveillance is the solution but crime isn't the problem it's solving - then why is it there?

    Answers on a miltary-grade encrypted postcard thanks.

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