[URL]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23367751[/URL]
[QUOTE][B]UK authorities increased the number of requests they made about the public's use of texts, emails and other communications data last year, an official report has revealed.[/B]
It said there were more than 570,000 demands [URL="http://www.iocco-uk.info/docs/2012%20Annual%20Report%20of%20the%20Interception%20of%20Communications%20Commissioner%20WEB.pdf"]made in 2012[/URL].
[highlight][B]The report also revealed that mistakes made while using the information led to six members of the public being wrongly detained or accused of a crime.[/B][/highlight]
It said all these cases had involved internet data.
A further error resulted in the police visiting the wrong address while looking for a child who had threatened to harm themselves.
"Fortunately errors with such severe consequences are rare," the report added.
The document also noted that the authorities might make several requests in the course of a single investigation, so the headline figures do not equate to the number of individuals or addresses targeted.
[/QUOTE]
That's one data request per 110.070 people.
"This doesn't matter, it can't affect you."
"Give me one case where someone was wrongly accused because of some metadata"
Yeah....
I thought every country did this, but only if they had [b]suspicion that somebody was actually committing a crime[/b]? Seriously, total unabashed blanket searching of innocent people's data is a restriction of freedoms, but this is basically equivalent to looking through a suspect's documents for evidence.
[quote]A further error resulted in the police visiting the wrong address while looking for a child who had threatened to harm themselves.[/quote]
That's just depressing.
Time to encrypt everything and then see how much they like my data
[QUOTE]The report also revealed that mistakes made while using the information led to six members of the public being wrongly detained or accused of a crime.[/QUOTE]
but muh metadata
[quote=The report]It is important to recognise that public authorities often make many requests for communications data in the course of a single investigation, so the total figure does not indicate the number of individuals or addresses targeted. Those numbers are not readily available, but would be much smaller.[/quote]
Seems like a lot of these are the police having one suspect and making a lot of requests for their messages, rather than one request = one person
[QUOTE=Sgt-NiallR;41539020]That's one data request per 110.070 people.[/QUOTE]
The article is slightly incorrect, it was five false arrests/accusations and one case of an officer going to the wrong house that resulted in no arrest.
Probability of any given UK citizen being wrongly arrested due to data mishandling: .000000796%.
Really, did anyone at any point think that it was impossible that this system could be anything short of flawless and would never, ever involve a false positive (or human error)? I'm sure there are more than five false arrests in a [i]week[/i] over other charges.
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