Tom Whitehead reports:
The system of investigating people’s backgrounds for employment vetting much be overhauled because it is wrongly “tilted” in favour of protecting the public, the Supreme Court concluded.
It said this meant that individual rights could be damaged by “unreliable” or “out of date” details, especially with the use of so-called soft intelligence held by police, such as allegations or suspicions, in enhanced Criminal Record Bureau (CRB) checks.
In a victory against the growing Big Brother state, the justices, in their first judgment since the Supreme Court opened in Britain earlier this month, said there should no longer be a “presumption for disclosure” of such information, which could be “even mere suspicion or hints of matters which are disputed by the applicant”.
[…]
In a second significant development, the Supreme judges said in cases where the disclosure of information is “borderline”, individuals should be given the opportunity to make representations to the police before it is passed on to employers.
Police chiefs said they would now “actively consider” allowing people to make representations.
Read more in the Telegraph.