Back to sppeding and cameras briefly - privacy

[Quentin Campbell]

On Mon, 31 Jul 2000, Roland Perry wrote:

> In article <2673204C8586D311A4A50008C70D46A21BA92A@brlexch01.blackwell.c
> o.uk>, Martin Hepworth <martin.hepworth@blackwellsbookshops.co.uk>
> writes
> >if I get 'marked' by mistake all this tech makes its very easy to
> >follow me without going through legal procedures unless there are very tight
> >controls.
> 
> Perhaps you'll find that these controls now exist for the first time: in
> Part 2 of RIP.
> -- 
> Roland Perry

The issues of concern will now be directed at how that information is
used, whether you know that it is being used and whether you have any
right of access in order to challenge it.

For example you may be denied a job because the vetting procedure turned
up a serious allegation about you in a Security Service file. You may be
told that you failed the vetting procedure but never why.

Take for example the young, hitch-hiking, university student was is picked
up by someone being monitored and later photographed (by these new
cameras?) in the presence of that individual and subsequently identified.
Could this innocent journey have an adverse effect on him/her later on?

Pretty unlikely you say. Well no!

I have previously cited on this list the case of the woman who applied for
and was accepted for a graduate traineeship at the BBC but was eventually
refused the job because of an adverse Security Service vetting report that
turned out to be based on unchecked information provided by West German
security sources. She had been hitch-hiking and was seen in the presence
of someone who was identified (wrongly as it turned out) as being a
terrorist suspect. This info was passed onto MI5 and eventually used
against her.

She only discovered this through her father, a then recently retired,
senior officer in the Mets. who was able to call in some old debts.

For most of us on this list these sorts of concerns probably have little
direct impact but they may hurt our kids who seek quite different career
paths in more sensitive jobs.

 
Quentin
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