King's College London breached GDPR sharing list of activist students with cops
theregister.co.uk
theregister.co.uk
I doubt that the administrators who provided this information to the Met even thought about the students rights for a second.
> In response to a request for the dates of birth of the protesters from the Met Police, an email from KCL read: "We've taken their details from our card security which does not have DoB. I would have to go to student services which would raise flags and cause chatter so would rather not as this is a sensitive around student freedosm!!! [sic]"
The student organizations that these activists belonged to don't really sound that extreme, depending on who is asked of course.
Action Palestine, Cut the Rent, Justice for Cleaners, Intersectional Feminists and Climate Strike
Police requested the information, but did so informally. Police didn't specify specifically what information they needed. [EDIT: This is bad! The uni should have asked for a formal request, and then done a privacy impact assessment. This is mentioned in the report linked to below]
Ignore the Register, which is hopeless, and read the report which is also hopeless but at least it's mostly factual. https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/statements/bush-house-security-re...
I'm not sure why the police asking for the list would be disturbing by itself. If they are investigating a crime and group X is suspected of being involved, finding out who belongs to group X seems prudent.
> The student organizations that these activists belonged to don't really sound that extreme, depending on who is asked of course.
I don't know how you can tell that from the name. In any case, the groups themselves may not be extreme, but there may be extremists within the group who police have reason to be interested in, but have not yet identified.
Unless they have evidence that these individuals either committed a crime or intend to, then there are several reasons why that would be objectionable: it's a violation of privacy, it's disproportionate to the harm they pose, and it's an over-reach of police power.
>"In any case, the groups themselves may not be extreme, but there may be extremists within the group who police have reason to be interested in, but have not yet identified."
I don't think 'extremists' is the right word. It's extremely unlike that we are talking about terrorism, or even the destruction of property. I suspect that KCL feared the normal modes of student protest: occupation, no-platforming, and spectacle.
If you read the report, the list at issue is a list of 'student protestors', made up of names from an occupation at KCL opposed to the outsourcing of the university's cleaning staff, a series of climate changes protests, and a protest outside a lecture by a Colonel in the Israeli Defence Force. These kinds of things have occurred at most universities in the UK over recent years, and they are fairly innocuous.
Police routinely ask questions of and about people who are not suspected of a crime in the process of investigating a crime. If a crime occurs and they have reason to suspect that a person in group X knows something about the crime, it's completely reasonable for them to seek out and question members of that group.
Requiring police to not only suspect, but have actual evidence against a person in order to investigate is an unreasonable burden and would make all but the most trivial cases impossible to solve.
> then there are several reasons why that would be objectionable: it's a violation of privacy, it's disproportionate to the harm they pose, and it's an over-reach of police power.
Sure. There are several reasons why a request might be objectionable, but I don't see any of those reasons being seriously and credibly alleged; only assumed or implied.
KCL itself concluded that it was disproportionate and a breach of privacy. It is not only alleged; it is the result of an independent report commissioned by one of the two culpable institutions!
>"Police routinely ask questions of and about people who are not suspected of a crime in the process of investigating a crime."
KCL shared the names of protestors who they feared might disrupt a visit from the Queen. They did not share them pursuant to the investigation of some further crime. The report suggests that KCL had no evidence that the students would disrupt the visit, other than the fact that they had been part of past protests. Given that fact, the violation of the student's privacy appears entirely disproportionate, and an improper and wasteful use of police resources.
KCL shared the names with police of students who had already been involved in a protest that had resulted in damage and for which they were considering disciplinary action. The police, in response, asked for more information about those students.
Exactly what should the police have done differently in your opinion?
I’d support penalties for both the police and disclosing organisation if it turns out that the police are using information that was acquired unlawfully in some way.
Much like “we gave a list of campus civil rights activists to the police because we don’t like protests” was also wrong (and illegal).
Protests are not illegal, not even in the fairly authoritarian British legal system.
>Action Palestine, Cut the Rent, Justice for Cleaners, Intersectional Feminists and Climate Strike
Extreme organizations always give themselves genteel names. The whole point of such groups is to mainstream their views, so a mainstream-friendly name is just part of that effort.
Further, almost all names that are not obviously extreme still referred to either nationality or religion one way or another. Quite surprising to be honest.
According to those patterns, most of those organisations are extremely unlikely to classify as extremists in the usual sense of the word. The might still have extremely unusual opinions, but that's a completely different matter.
Various front line staff in the UK (e.g.,) teachers have to shop anyone they suspect of havi g extremist views into the police. This is the Prevent programme which I think was brought in after the July 7 terror attacks.
Here's a reasonable article about PREVENT: https://www.anncrafttrust.org/what-is-the-prevent-agenda/
Various front line staff in the UK (e.g.,) teachers have to shop anyone they suspect of having extremist views into the police. This is the Prevent programme which I think was brought in after the July 7 terror attacks.
In the US, alleged nazis are doxxed and given to the press, police, and anyone else and nobody seems to care. I don't think I've seen on complaint here on HN.
My point is that we should care about everyone's privacy..not just the people that you agree with politically.
No?
Nazi do. They aren't going to extend the same olive branch to talk things out if they have the power, but will hide behind "but your tolerance! DEBATE ME!!!" when they don't.
The only thing I'd extend to them is the right to due process and innocent until proven guilty - but walk around with Nazi paraphernalia or slogans and you're getting punched.
This will enable a better perspective about GDPR and exemptions, which would be most relevant in relation to the cops/police/security services/government/.......
What the hell was the uni doing trying to suppress activists to begin with? That's kind of a hostile school/student relationship.
The university isn't covered by RIPA (I don't think so anyway, maybe I'm wrong), but the police are and I'd be interested to know if this police request was RIPA compliant.