Rebecca Camber reports:
Police should consider the feelings of criminals’ families before they name and shame online.
In a move critics say puts the privacy of criminals before public protection, forces have been told they must remove details of crimes from their websites after a month.
Criminals’ personal details and their offence should be routinely published, but their photographs can only be put on the web if there is a specific reason, the Ministry of Justice said.
And fresh Government guidance states police and councils should take into account the impact on the offenders’ families of seeing their crimes detailed.
Data protection and human rights laws also restrict what can be published. The new rules state officials should also consider whether it is ‘proportionate’ to make the verdicts and sentences public and whether publishing details could have an ‘unjustifiably adverse effect’ on the criminal.
Read more in the Daily Mail.