WRITTEN ON August 5th, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Data nitwittery, Foundation of Trust, Official fibbing/bad stats, We told you so..., What do we want?
Bloody marvellous. When the database state + Experian connive to wreck your life, there’s no comeback! So rules Bill Blair (brother of the devout war-mongerer himself) in a High Court judgment, reported by El Reg:
An entrepreneur whose fledgling business was ruined by a false entry in a court database has had his claim for compensation rejected by a High Court judge. The decision could set a broad and troubling precedent, because Mr Justice Bill Blair QC – brother of the former PM Tony Blair – ruled that the civil service cannot be found liable for the damage caused by its record keeping mistakes.
The case was brought by Andre Power, from Benfleet in Essex, against the Ministry of Justice, which is responsible for HM Courts Service. It was prompted by the failure of Chi-qi.com, a world music download service and social network Mr Power set up with a business partner in 2006.
After sinking tens of thousands of his own money into the venture, Mr Power fell three months – or about £5,000 – behind on his mortgage payments and was taken to Southend County Court by his lender in July 2007. He settled the debt in full before it came before a judge.
An unknown official at Southend County Court nevertheless registered a County Court Judgement (CCJ) against his name for £254,000, the full value of the mortgage.
Commenting on the error, Phil Booth, the national coordinator of the campaign group NO2ID, said: “In the database state, it’s the citizen who takes all the risk and suffers the consequences – even when he or she has done nothing wrong. My sympathies go to Mr Power. I fear he’s not the first and he definitely won’t be the last.”
*sigh* Grrrr. This is, we need hardly say, far form Ideal. It is the Kafkaesque as opposed to Orwellian face of joined-up government. Experian’s conniving role in this is beyond the pale.
Wibbi: government accepted liability for damages caused by inaccurate data. Experian too.
Wibbi subject access requests were free, and automated, so we could more easily see what garbage government and Experian are circulating about us.
“…ruled that the civil service cannot be found liable for the damage caused by its record keeping mistakes.”
That cannot be allowed to stand. Everyone, in any walk of life, needs to be accountable for their actions and not placed above the law. If this is not over-turned, it may be that Parliament will need to act to correct this.
I also thought it was an offence under the data protection act to hold wrong or false information on systems? If so, isn’t that an offence in itself?