JNugent wrote:
> James Hammerton wrote:
>> Yet more guilt by accusation in Britain. From the BBC
>> (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7389547.stm):
>>
>> "To critics it sounds like a scenario from some Orwellian nightmare.
>>
>> An online database of workers accused of theft and dishonesty,
>> regardless of whether they have been convicted of any crime, which
>> bosses can access when vetting potential employees.
>>
>> But this is no dystopian fantasy. Later this month, the National
>> Staff Dismissal Register (NSDR) is expected to go live.
>>
>> Organisers say that major companies including Harrods, Selfridges
>> and Reed Managed Services have already signed up to the scheme. By
>> the end of May they will be able to check whether candidates for
>> jobs have faced allegations of stealing, forgery, fraud, damaging
>> company property or causing a loss to their employers and suppliers.
>>
>> Workers sacked for these offences will be included on the register,
>> regardless of whether police had enough evidence to convict them.
>> Also on the list will be employees who resigned before they could
>> face disciplinary proceedings at work.
>>
>> Note the vague "causing loss to their employers" bit of this.
>>
>> And who’s behind this? The AABC, a group set up under a partnership
>> between the Home Office and the British Retail Consortium (i.e. a bit
>> of corporate statism):
>>
>> The register is an initiative of Action Against Business Crime
>> (AABC), which was established as a joint venture between the Home
>> Office and the British Retail Consortium “to set up and maintain
>> business crime reduction partnerships”.
>>
>> To be fair to the Home Office they say they stopped funding the AABC
>> this year.
>>
>> I wonder whether AABC could be sued for libel by someone wrongly
>> accused via this database?
>
> They could be sued for libel (or slander, as the case may be) by someone
> *correctly* accused, as long as the incident had been to court and was
> old enough (and eligible for becomiing "spent"). The Rehabilitation of
> Offenders Act contains provision for exactly that - a person with a
> spent conviction can sue if that conviction is revealed without lawful
> authority - and the operation of a private database is not such lawful
> authority.
Thanks for the info.
>
> But this only applies to convictions. Tittle-tattle about suspicions is
> only subject to the Data Protection Act.
How would the DPA help other than in terms of finding out what the
tittle-tattle consists of? Is such tittle-tattle "personal information"
that cannot normally be shared without consent?
James |