Employers to take fingerprints for CRB checks Private companies will take fingerprints from job applicants as part of a trial to improve the accuracy of Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) background checks. The trial, disclosed to The Register in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, will see employment agencies gather biometric data from some applicants to …
Quite apart from all the other issues:
"The CRB therefore made amendments in Police Act Regulations"
Since when did the CRB become able to change the Police Act Regulations without it going through parliament? That can't be right can it? Tell me it was a mistake?
This government is destroying our democracy, piece by piece.
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OK, it's time for me to Google 'How to remove your fingerprints' (via Tor, naturally).
How can an employment agency be trusted to take fingerprints? They're notoriously bad at handling data as it is and having countless bods coming through the system each day to be processed in the same way again and again, it's not exactly the most conducive environment for handling sensitive data.
"they will be forwarded to either a police force or one central police force" - yeah, I can imagine it now:
FROM: smalltime_job_agency@hotmail.com
TO: all_staff@uk.gov
SUBJECT: Heres the fngr prts u asked 4
ATTACHMENTS: Prints.jpg
The databses are clearly not going to go away, in fact the louder you complain the more different databases pop up, each doing something else, each prone to leakage. By that reasoning your identity is practically common knowledge already, and any false negative is squarely the state's fault. The more incompetents involved, the merrier.
But please do note: Any false positive has direct negative consequences for you, so it remains to us the people to quickly, publicly, savagely lambast the government for failing us again.
The government is right. We must protect everyone, except the law-abiding, tax-paying, hardworking members of the populace against the evils of terror. The solution; mass genocide.
Seriously, folks, it's the only way we can be sure no-one will ever be in any danger (regardless of whether any danger actually exists). So, if we can all form an orderly queue for cynide pills we'll be done in no time*.
*Oh crap. Euthenasia is also against the law. Looks like we can't even defend ourselves against ourselves. We're doomed!
And in a few years time, these f---wits will be explaining to the media why they can't possibly be held responsible that their knee-jerk form-ticking measures had not the slightest effect on levels of abuse, other than to frighten off a whole lot of genuine people and leave the field open for cunning abusers.
Come to that - who the hell is watching the watchers...
While a prospective interviewer is trying to work out if I'm suitable for their job, they need to remember that I'm also trying to discover if I want to work for them. As such, they have to sell their job to me, as much as I have to persuade them I'm the right person to employ.
So, if they are going to require a CRB check for my past, isn't it only right that they should give me the same information about my prospective work-mates? After all, I'd like to know before I take a position whether I can safely leave my jacket unattended, just how many stalking offences the PR person has or if the guy at the next desk is likely to poison my coffee.
The clue's futher down: "Police Act 1997 (Criminal Records) Regulations 2002".
They haven't changed the act, only the implementation instructions associated with it. Presumably the CRB "owns" these instructions / rules / guidelines and can do pretty much WTF they like with them.
This is how representative democracy really works. The public votes for a load for a load of idiots who promise to do X. The idiots then enact a bill that says something that passes for X when squinted at in a poor light and tag on Y and Z for good measure. Then the whole shebang gets handed over to the machinations of the Civil Service. They carefully read between the lines to interpret X, Y and Z to mean pretty much anything they think is a Good Thing and issue policy documents, guidelines, rules and regulations. Anyone who gave a shit about X in the first place wonders WTF happened.
It's just like "Chinese whispers", only in triplicate, on approved stationery and usually played over lunch with a supplier of services.
"Since when did the CRB become able to change the Police Act Regulations without it going through parliament? That can't be right can it? Tell me it was a mistake?"
So touchingly naive. Many acts of parliament actually provide powers for other government bodies to introduce and modify regulations within the scope of an act. It's very likely that the CRB has considerable flexibility to make regulatory changes within the general scope of the act without having to go through and produce new primary legislation.
Many ministers have similar powers. There are some valid reasons for that. If every change top the detail of a regulation required a parliamentary act then it would put a huge delay on enacting changes and clog things up mightily. Of course there are those that believe that the government has rather abused this, and that some of the enabling legislation (which is what is passed by act of parliament) are set rather too widely and allow too much discretion to ministers and government departments. I think people might be rather surprised at just how much enabling legislation has already been passed and just how many new rules could be introduced or changed without reference to parliament.
@JakeyC
Given the "small bookcase"* IQ of the average employment agent, I would say that the attached file is likely to contain the fingerprints of somebody else.
Your file is actually called "Prints (17).jpg" - nobody told the agent to delete the old files from "C:\My Documents\My Prints\" and the instructions told him to attach "Prints.jpg".
*http://www.katzphur.co.uk/stories/?story=newhorizons
@Pete 2
My CV contains a gap for the time I worked as a builder's labourer. As it has no relevance to any job I apply for, I don't put it down.
Several interviewers have queried this gap, and my reply is always: "I'm sorry but I cannot discuss that period with you until I have established you have the necessary clearance."
They usually stare, swallow hard and move on.
I work somewhere with a strict criminal records checking policy, which is done via a third party 'registered body', as per the article. The number of checks and the sheer pedantry involved when starting this job was unbelieveable. However, just as I was reading this story, I received an email from HR to say that they don't have my home address on file. What?! You ensured that everything but fingerprinting/iris scanning was done, but you don't even know where I live?!
Prepare for mass data leakage in 5...4...3...
Just how does one become a 'Registered Body' - I'm guessing something along the lines of a 10min Distance Learning course with print-your-own certificate & a 'Registration Fee' of >£5,000 per annum to HMG?: if it's anything like becoming a 'Financial Adviser' we're all so very, very screwed!
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"If every change top the detail of a regulation required a parliamentary act then it would put a huge delay on enacting changes and clog things up mightily." - which would be a bloody good idea. Even better if MPs and peers would insist on voting against everything that they had not personally read and understood, instead of permitting the whips to herd them to vote for whatever the civil service wrote and gave ministers partial briefings on.
Since the unemployed and disabled are being lined up for consultancies to place them in voluntary work by the likes of James Purnell and his followers, the voluntary sector is most likely going to get flooded with rafts of ill motivated, poor people, all of whom end up on a police database and will then have their biometrics effectively given away by a consultant who leaves his lappie on a train or randomly loses them in the post. Since these folks are poor people and have no money with which to challenge such muppetry in court, nobody will care. The consultants will make a sh*tload of money placing these "volunteers" and supplying the accompanying CRB's, whilst the use of this body of folks will decrease satisfaction in the areas in which they are employed and put yet other folks in paid employment out of their jobs when the "volunteers" end up being made to do 'em......
As a chap who has volunteered to support IT at a health related charity and having had to be CRB'd in the past, I think if I was asked ot submit dabs in addition to being asked to supply bank account details (currently voluntary, I declined), and details of internet addresses and the like (again voluntary, again I declined- exoect both of these to be made compulsory soon), I think I'd reconsider my view of voluntary work and give it up entirely. Fsck the "nothing to hide" argument, this is the kind of social control even the Soviet Union would think twice about, because it wouldn't come cheap.
It'll cost a fortune and wont work.
Forgive my cycnicism.....
This government does seem to be intent on making sure we all distrust each other. I can no longer give a lift to a friend's child when I take mine to Scouts. I had a squeaky clean CRB check but have now bailed out of volunteer work because of all the bureaucracy, can't do anything remotely adventurous or challenging because of risk assessments, can't restrain a kid trying to beat up another 'cos I'd be charged with assault, can't exclude a misbehaving kid because I'm discriminating, being unfair, failing to make allowance for his "Oppositional defiant disorder".
Whilst I would be happy to do volunteer work with kids again were it possible to engage in outdoor activities, I would no longer be willing to be CRB checked, especially if it involved fingerprinting. CRB has made no difference to the levels of child abuse. Put the resources wasted on CRB into identifying the (CRB checked) paedos like those involved in the Rocking Horse nursery case.
I used to take car loads of kids on "official" trips so CRB covered, then I discovered that I'd been breaking the law because some of the smaller kids were under 1.35 metres tall so needed to be in child seats. Fair enough I hear you say, it's for their protection - so why does the same not apply if the kid is in a taxi?
The junior school run where one parent would take a car-full home for tea or for a day out at half term - or even sharing that daily school-run now requires a child seat for every kid so it's a real pain so it happens far less, instead less socialising and more cars on the road. That's supposed to be in the interests of reducing motoring fatalities - so lets see the statistics to justify the legislation - what were the motoring accident figures for kids before and after the legislation? (or lets see which child car seat manufacturers have donated to the Labour party). The road fatality statistics show 1% of road users account for 20% of fatalities - surely that 1% should be targetted - show me a government that would dare to ban that 1% (bikers) - but no, one kiddie dies so lets ban kids in cars.
More pathetic ass-covering from employers.
"You can't sue us because even though man who did these terrible things worked for us all his background checks came up clean".
Because everyone knows that background checks prevent crime from happening. It's true because I saw it on the GovDirect website, or maybe I heard it in a dream or something?
I get CRB-checked (and beyond) as part of my job - it's a somewhat intrusive process that involves taking details about my family. I've never been too sure what - other than common sense - prevents someone from lying through their teeth on these forms. I'd be surprised if the bored administrators processing the forms for minimum wage could spot a cleverly constructed lie even if the words "Everything that follows is a cleverly constructed lie" were printed in block-text red-ink on the form.
Why are our law-makers labouring under a delusion that more checks prevents more criminals? All this does is incovenience the law-abiding while people who don't give a fig carry on lying as before and hope not to be found out.
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