>they can discover if their abuser is a repeat offender without identifying themselves to the authorities
Nonsense. An anonymous accusation is all but meaningless, and is in no way similar to a conviction. This is some truly garbage journalism.
Nonsense. An anonymous accusation is all but meaningless, and is in no way similar to a conviction. This is some truly garbage journalism.
Also not to pile it on -- it's a complete tangent, really -- but every time I read the word "whilst" I cringe and wonder why the author didn't write "while". IMHO it adds no additional information or nuance, it's an archaic word that's long since departed from spoken use, and its presence in a sentence serves only to signal a failed attempt to sound sophisticated. Maybe it's just me, but for some reason it always triggers this reaction of "oh get off it, stop being pompous". /rant /tangent
Whilst is a perfectly cromulent word in British english
Neither the article nor Project Callisto claim it is anything like a conviction. The article itself points out that even when multiple people accuse the same person the lawyers who are contacted do not (and cannot) get access to the accused person's name via the system.
All it does is get a lawyer to contact them - which is something they could do already if they are making something up.
The article doesn't need to make the presumption of innocence - it's not a trial, it's showing how this is helpful to a victim of assault. There's no "two sides" argument here.
If you check out the the Project Callisto website they outline the protections there are for accused - namely that they can never be named to the lawyers who get involved by the project. That has to be done by the individuals making the accusation to the lawyers.
It is - as the article says - a way of letting the victims know they are not alone.
Nor does the article have any business making the presumption of guilt, but it does exactly that.
I am criticizing what the article actually does, not expecting it to do something more.
All it takes is a person registering a name then receiving notification that others have registered the same name, then conflating that with evidence of guilt in the same exact manner the articles does.
If the article didn’t set such a good example of how to ruin an innocent person’s life, I wouldn’t be concerned.
> If the article didn’t set such a good example of how to ruin an innocent person’s life
But it doesn't? The accused person is never named publicly - a lawyer is involved to help decide on next steps.
It seems you are concerned about fraudulent accusations. But this doesn't seem to do anything to make fraudulent accusations easier in any way because the public accusation is out-of-scope of what it does.