A Kafkaesque reality
The government is always right. They are incapable of making mistakes. If something is wrong, it is you that is wrong. The government is always right because they work for you and love you; and you love them. If you don’t, they can cure you.
However, in a massive reversal of always being right, a UK government clerk ruined Andre Powers’s business (mirror).
Andre Powers spent so much on his starting business that he fell three months behind on his mortgage payments. His lender took him to court, but Mr Powers settled the debt before the case came before a judge.
However, a smart clerk, who obviously double-checks his sources, mistakingly entered a County Court Judgement (CCJ) for the full amount of Mr Powers’s mortgage. Mr Powers didn’t find out until a potential investor performed a credit check on him through Experian. The credit check failed because, according to the government database from which Experian buys its information, Mr Powers was over £240,000 in debt.
No investors means no business. As the government database error was responsible for ruining his business Mr Powers tried to claim for compensation, but a judge dismissed his claim citing an apparently very unrelated precedent of a prisoner being held longer than the time he was convicted for and not being able to sue over it (Quinland v. Governor of Swaleside Prison). Full of compassion, the judge did decide that the CCJ should be removed.
Thanks to one clerk and one judge, a dangerous precedent has been set. When the government ruins your life because of a simple database error, there is no way you will be able to claim back the money or time you lost because of it. All it takes is one government clerk’s idiocy, bad typing skills, or pressure to reach his data entry targets to ruin your life.
With a bit of luck, they’ll remove or change the erroneous information, but that’s it – your losses are completely yours to carry.
In another great database scheme, the same UK government has had the genious idea of vetting everyone who frequently visits schools, such as children’s books authors (mirror).
For the privilege of being part of this database, the “candidate” gets to pay £64. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, you either pass or fail the vetting: you do not have access to the information that is kept on you, so you cannot defend yourself. This information consists of your criminal history and, surprisingly, allegations and suspicions reported by the public. You better not have any enemies.
There will be no official charge or trial, just a pass or fail. If you fail, because at some point your ex-wife/ex-husband accused you of abusing your children to spite you (it’s not like that never happens) (mirror), you’re marked for the rest of your life: you failed a vetting that was put in place to protect our children from dangerous sexual predators. As far as public opinion is concerned, you are nothing but a child molester.
In their quest to set up another database, the government has conveniently forgotten that, in any school, no visitor is ever left alone with a child: a teacher is always present, as they carry the ultimate responsibility for the well-being of their little students.
Luckily, the government has promised to rethink the details (mirror), but you probably shouldn’t get your hopes up.
For all the bullshit the UK government spouts about “human rights”, this legislation is very much against the European Convention of Human Rights.
In an even further move towards complete database control, the UK government is still pushing to implement its national ID database, including biometrics.
Ordinarily, different government agencies would hold different information on citizens – with a national ID database, all information will be centralised. Great idea; now only one database needs to be cracked to commit very efficient fraud through impersonation (sorry, identity theft).
But it’s all alright, because they’re going to add fancy biometrics to the database to make it extra safe! If only biometrics could be infallible, which they are not.
Quoting or referring to George Orwell’s 1984 is going to become a lot less cliché when our society becomes exactly like the one Winston Smith hated so much. But, as Smith, I’m sure that we will be cured to love it.