By Andy McCue, 22 May 2006 16:20
NEWS
The government has admitted that 2,700 people have been wrongly labelled criminals following errors at the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB).
The blunder was uncovered by The Mail on Sunday, which found that the innocent citizens - ranging from court ushers to students - were refused jobs and university courses after wrongly failing CRB checks.
The police checks are usually carried out to vet people who apply to work as teachers with children or vulnerable adults.
But in some cases innocent people failed a check because their own details were similar to those of someone else with a criminal record on the CRB database.
So far 1,500 of those who were incorrectly identified as having criminal convictions, ranging from theft to violent robbery, have successfully appealed and had to go to their local police station to undergo a fingerprint check, according to the paper.
The Home Office said it would make no apology for erring on the side of caution when there are close ID matches on the CRB system and added that they account for just 0.03 per cent of the nine million checks carried out since the CRB launched four years ago.
But Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Nick Clegg said the latest revelations take Home Office incompetence to "new absurd levels".He said in a statement: "While dangerous criminals are allowed to walk freely in our communities, innocent people are being given criminal records and prevented from getting on with their lives. This latest fiasco will erase the last bit of public confidence in the Home Office."
Comments
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1. Graham Coles
Can't wait for the sequel with the ID cards database.
Then when terrorists hack the database and flag innocent people as known terrorists we can look forward to the Home Office explaining that we shouldn't worry about the several thousand people shot dead as they only represent a small percentage of the population.
That's assuming the government manage to get the system working, of course ...
2. Brian Lazell
For the Home Office to suggest that it's OK because the 2700 errors represent only .03% of 9000000 checks is misleading, presumably deliberately so. The relevant figure, the one that would normally be quoted in deciding whether a filter was working correctly or not is the proportion of false positives. From the figures given this is 9.7%. (2700 errors divided by 25000 correct identifications plus the errors). I wonder what the rate of false negatives is?
3. Charles Wood
This issue is exactly why people like myself object so strongly to an identity card. The mistake here was with the original data, and the hoops that the individuals have to go through to fix some stupid cleric's error are at the least embarrassing, at the worst seriously damaging to someone reputation. I can give other examples, with my Halifax bank account when a similar error resulted in me having to make a police complaint to get the error rectified.
It is always the same issue: governments really couldnt give a toss when they or their employees make a mistake, and they fix it in their own good time. For the individual, reduced to a database entry mistake, it can be disastrous!
Until this balance can be addressed properly, we should not have ID cards.
4. galley slave#41
Why does it not surprise me.
after all that's why I'm in this ruddy galley, innocent as I am, as are the rest of the crew
Protesting only gets us forty lashes!
5. John Maher
So, how many people will be wrongly labeled by the proposed ID card system? Nothing less than a 100.00000000% success rate should be tolerated for such checks. They then have the neck to refuse to apologise and require the unfortunates to be finger-printed. No doubt the latter were kept for future reference ....
6. Roger Huffadine
How about asking them how many people get clearance where there is a spelling mistake in the name? Oh yes - it does go on - and then ask "of those who were incorrectly cleared, how many should have been stopped". Errrr???
7. anonymous
This government obviously do not care in the least about the damage caused to victims reputations, employment prospects, etc. For the Home Office have apparently & categorically refused to apologise for the errors.
Once again it brings into sharp focus the fact that almost certainty that the proposed ID Cards will be flawed. Potentially causing great problems for the indigenous populace. It is all about the maniacal desire of Blair & Brown to control every facet of our lives. The one thing that the aforementioned Blair & Brown have in common is that they are both control freaks of the worst type.
8. anonymous
Ah yes! But it would never happen with a National Identity Card Scheme, would it?