David Mery's arresting experience
Thanks to Jane Sales for pointing this out to me. I have a colleague at Symbian called David Mery (some may remember him as an editor of .EXE magazine some years ago). David was arrested at Southwark tube station several weeks ago during the period of heightened tension following the tube bombings. Today's Guardian newspaper carries an article by him about the events of that day.
http://digital.guardian.co.uk/guardian/2005/09/22/pages/ber1.shtml
I'm not sure how long this URL will remain usable, but David has also published his experience on his own website:gizmonaut.net/bits/suspect.html and it makes interesting reading.
The comments about what is retained on the PNC come as no surprise to me. My guess is that this sort of thing could only be changed if enough people were notably inconvenienced by it or there was strong evidence of misuse. It makes it plain how insidious the ID card thing is, because so many of the practical details of the operation of the database are obscure.
http://digital.guardian.co.uk/guardian/2005/09/22/pages/ber1.shtml
I'm not sure how long this URL will remain usable, but David has also published his experience on his own website:gizmonaut.net/bits/suspect.html and it makes interesting reading.
The comments about what is retained on the PNC come as no surprise to me. My guess is that this sort of thing could only be changed if enough people were notably inconvenienced by it or there was strong evidence of misuse. It makes it plain how insidious the ID card thing is, because so many of the practical details of the operation of the database are obscure.