This discussion centred on the "if you've nothing to hide then you won't
mind them holding data" argument. As a citizen, I incline to that view,
but one's faith is strongly challenged by reports such as last night's
Panorama (BBC1 2 Nov 2003) which questionned the conduct of the South
Wales Police when investigating murders.
I have been in a court when a PC giving evidence was stopped by the Clerk,
then changed what he was reading from "contemporaneous notes". That was a
random sample of one occasion when I looked in on a magistrates' court out
of curiosity.
Given what it is alleged the police will do with no information to
fabricate evidence, are we more or less safe when they have access to a
general population register with "biometric data"? It seems to me there
is no statistical content to that question, and the role of a statistician
is only to counter the liars who use "statistics for support rather than
illumination."
R. Allan Reese Email: [log in to unmask]
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