** Reply to note from "Ian Welton" <[log in to unmask]> Fri, 24 Mar 2000 22:30:01 -0000
> Do the basic issues in question not throw a very clear light on this:-
>
> Do we live in a secret society where information can be generated and held
> about you without your knowledge?
>
> Or do we live in an open society where the legislation provides rights of
> access to data held about you?
Yo, another believer in conspiracy theories. I like that.
It depends on who in this society is holding the data on you. "Big brother"
organisations are still free to hold (and even do) what they like. Small
organisations have to disclose, so I guess, we live in a not so-open
and not so-closed society (I am being diplomatic).
As far as references go, the whole business of confidentiallity is
arising because someone may rightly or wrongly give a bad reference. So if
you are an honest referee (ie. you intent to give an honest reference) you
have to lie to the receipient of the reference in case you are taken to court
by the data subject. So you lie in the reference to save you yourself from
the data subject, in which case the receipient of the reference sues you for
passing them the dumbo of your company as diamonds.
In my simple mind I can see one particular profession doing well out of the
above scenario.
I would prefer for potential referees to be able to refuse to give a
reference instead of giving a bad one (not alaways easy). After all, if you
MUST give a reference you must give one you can defend and you can always ...
wink wink nudge nudge ... follow it up with a one-off phone call.
Regards :-)
Charles
==============================================
Charles Christacopoulos, Secretary's Office, University of Dundee,
Dundee DD1 4HN, (Scotland) United Kingdom.
Tel: +44+(0)1382-344891. Fax: +44+(0)1382-201604.
http://somis.ais.dundee.ac.uk/
Scottish Search Maestro http://somis2.ais.dundee.ac.uk/
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