Monday 11 August 2014

“It’s For Your Own Good, Citizen...”

Police want new and expanded rights to access medical records and other confidential data without an individual's consent, a senior police chief has told the Guardian. Sir Peter Fahy, the Greater Manchester chief constable, said the extra access to sensitive data was needed to help police cope with growing numbers of vulnerable people.
The sort of vulnerable people they ‘help’ by failing to turn up when they dial 999, or looking the other way while they seize and die in custody, or taser while they are out for a walk, perhaps?
He said demands had changed over the past two decades, with vulnerable groups now accounting for around 70% of police work. "We need to have easier access to information," he said.
Oh, right. Of course. God forbid your officers don’t have an easy life, eh? What are our rights compared to that?
Fahy accepted the public may be sceptical about his calls for greater powers …
No shit, Sherlock!
… but said privacy concerns which either deny officers access to information or slow the process down cost police money and time.
Wait, they cost us – the taxpayer – money and time, don’t they? And so I think we’ll be the judge of whether that’s OK or not.

Opposition to this comes from a rather unlikely source:
Dr Tony Calland, of the British Medical Association, said: "The essential principle that runs throughout the recording of medical information is that of confidentiality and trust. This principle has stood the test of time for millennia and still holds good today. "At present the checks and balances in the current legal position are satisfactory and whilst the current law may cause some difficulty for the police the case has not been made to recommend a substantial change in the law ."
In other words, Fahy, Foxtrot Oscar! Blimey, you know you’re on the wrong path when the BMA are saying ‘Woah there! That’s a bit too strong!’, don’t you?

But it seems he’s just getting warmed up! Oh, he has a whole list of things he wants to see to usher in his Brave New Policing World:
Fahy believes a national register of vulnerable people should be created.
Should they have to wear some sort of … distinguishing mark…on their clothing, maybe? You know, to help your officers?
A more controversial example is a woman suffering from domestic violence, where Fahy said doctors or medical professionals would know or suspect there was a problem but not tell the police or other agencies. Fahy said agencies might need to radically rethink the way they work. He said medical professionals could breach confidentiality and share information to prevent further harm.

In return police would promise not to "put the door in and arrest", and work with agencies to solve the problem: "The alternative is the woman continues to suffer … There should be the ability to share the information, against the woman's wishes, to solve the problem, without a criminal justice system approach. Society has matured – there is a far greater expectation on public services to safeguard vulnerable people.

"Twenty years ago, with domestic abuse, it was seen as one of those things. Now there's a greater expectation agencies will safeguard the victim whether or not they wish to make a complaint and enter the criminal justice system."
This is going to prove an interesting little dilemma, isn’t it? How can radical feminists argue, on the one hand, that a woman’s body is sacrosanct & her rights to independence are inviolate and then, on the other hand, that she’s just a poor little waif who needs to cede her rights to the Big Strong State who will look after them for her?

So at the very least, this will pit the abortion-on-demand crowd against the domestic-violence crowd. *popcorn*
He accepted that trust in state power had been damaged after the revelations from the whistleblower Edward Snowden about the extent of state surveillance: "The danger is [revelations] from Snowden create an atmosphere of suspicion of why public services want to access the information."

But he said: "If you want a good public service it is crucial that there is increased information sharing, properly overseen and regulated."
Really? Because it seems to me that we had ‘a good public service’ in the past, when the police just fought crime.

It’s only now that the progressives have wrecked the system and made them a combination of UN aid distributor and social worker that people like you are clamouring to have ever more increasing powers to save people from themselves.

Maybe it’s time we just went back to those Peelian principles?

13 comments:

Fidel Cuntstruck said...

Citizen .... if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear!

MTG said...

Gosh, there would be no stopping the voyeurs trawling medical records for juicy tit bits, if you know what I mean. I need hardly point out that when it suited a corrupt purpose, plod's form for 'tailoring', 'planting', 'losing evidence and falsifying accounts, is without precedent.

However, we cannot be averse to plod changes. A few fresh air pursuits and beat appearances should help wean them off reptilian office climates, hourly sugar hits and internet porn.

tomrat said...

There is I believe a rather simple solution to this and it's one I bleated on about at my own blog so many moons ago when I could still be arsed with such things: fold social services into the police force as a specialist unit with similar roles and responsiblities as they have now but with more teeth but also considerably more oversight and feedback loops for dealing with issues; it would then be a case of the regulars walking down the hall to their social worker colleagues who would be able to tell them if there was a potential scope for more intervention/care required - likewise social workers could get regulars involved faster into difficult and rapidly changing landscapes with vulnerable people and initiate proceedings against offenders and be held openly accountable.

Anonymous said...

" How can radical feminists argue, on the one hand, that a woman’s body is sacrosanct & her rights to independence are inviolate and then, on the other hand, that she’s just a poor little waif who needs to cede her rights to the Big Strong State who will look after them for her? "

For a start, radical feminism has only exchanged the protection of one guardian for another. In the past, if a man caused a woman unwarranted trouble, the man could expect to be dealt with by the father, the husband, the brother or the son of the said woman. Now that is the state's role.

similarly, in the past when a woman started having children, her husband supported her to enable her to bring them up. Now that is the state's role.

Mr. Fahy is only doing what 'Team Woman' wants, because you can bet your bottom dollar that the gender balance in domestic violence would not be reflected in arrests or other results of our modern police "service".

ivan said...

'I am from the government and am here to help you'. Shudder.

It seems ACPO have been studying the Stasi methods of policing - are they getting ready for a coup.

Anonymous said...

Legitamising that unofficial and perverse police custom of eavesdropping and recording private conversations between defendant and lawyers, will be next.

Procedural changes which required the defendant to disprove an allegation beyond a reasonable doubt, would also spare plod much paperwork and inconvenience.

Were it not for Parliament having its own feet fully immersed in the golden judicial trough, the State could always abolish the present shambles in favour of setting up The Inquisition of Armed Plod to deal all crime...as the latter saw fit.

MTG said...

Civilian sources poured much scorn upon plod and provided not a single supportive comment in the DM.

Such enjoyable and entertaining reads must be saved for rainy days and birthday treats.

MTG said...

Mail commenter 'bassi' (WC Jaded?) said:

Ithink police need access to medecal recordes when dealing with people so that they know what they can and cant say i.e past problems.Also so they know if their is any medecal issues handling some one.

Anonymous said...

Melvin, you've made your point - pathetically as usual. As a 'retired' plod all I will say is that if Fahy wants it - it can't be good for the rest of us. The man's a hoon - a dangerous, PC/common purpose HOON!

Anonymous said...

Most grown men get excited at looking at pictures of scantily clad women but Melvin gets off on reading the constant anti-police stories that the Daily Mail churns out.
Jaded
PS Fahy is a buffoon.

MTG said...

@ WC Jaded

Pervasive foolery and corruption form the basis of plod's tragi-comedy. Fahy has risen to Chief constable because he supposedly represents the best qualities to be found in police candidates. Yet we are agreed that his knighthood was bestowed out of sheer nervous desperation rather than for services to policing.

A paradigm of everything that can possibly go wrong in a public service, Greater Manchester Police will make fresh headlines before the end of the week, and for all the wrong reasons.

Plod buffoonery is the meme Mail reporters are repeating daily and, trust me on this, it is side-splitting. 'Lightning' up and just enjoy, Jaded!

Anonymous said...

Oh, Julia...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2722722/Chief-Constable-Greater-Manchester-Police-facing-criminal-investigation-watchdog-bungled-probe-suspected-sex-offender.html

JuliaM said...

"Gosh, there would be no stopping the voyeurs trawling medical records for juicy tit bits..."

One would hope there'd be some kind of audit.

It wouldn't stop them though, just catch them at it.

"...fold social services into the police force as a specialist unit with similar roles and responsiblities as they have now but with more teeth but also considerably more oversight and feedback loops for dealing with issues..."

Would giving social workers more power really be such a good idea?

"...radical feminism has only exchanged the protection of one guardian for another. "

True!

"Oh, Julia..."

The timing was sublime..!