Cops visit school of 'wrong person's child,' mix up in epic data fail(theregister.com)
theregister.com
Cops visit school of 'wrong person's child,' mix up in epic data fail
https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/01/west_midlands_police_data_protection/
5 comments
While not the same, we have national insurance numbers for people over 16: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Insurance_number
Most people will have one of these and they are unique to that person.
Most people will have one of these and they are unique to that person.
Over 16? Wow.. that's.. way too late :P
How can you be sure that you are working with the correct person number though?
It's very deeply integrated into all systems from the very start. Everyone knows their person number, and it's the key in all DBs from the state to municipalities to companies. It's literally everywhere.
I think that's how you get to a working system: universal buy in.
I think that's how you get to a working system: universal buy in.
> Britain's data watchdog says the force "incorrectly linked and merged the records" of the individuals that share the same name and date of birth on multiple occasions during 2020, 2021 and 2022.
I wonder if a country could successfully require name/birthdate to be unique?
It looks like the UK averages around 1800 births/day. The most common last name, "Smith", belongs to about 1 in 88 people there. That would mean about 20 Smiths born per day.
That's small enough that they could all be given different first names without anyone having to pick some weird name.
There could still be collisions due to immigration though.
I wonder if a country could successfully require name/birthdate to be unique?
It looks like the UK averages around 1800 births/day. The most common last name, "Smith", belongs to about 1 in 88 people there. That would mean about 20 Smiths born per day.
That's small enough that they could all be given different first names without anyone having to pick some weird name.
There could still be collisions due to immigration though.
You could just give people a pin code. System could be set up so common spelling variations don't matter.
Jon Smith 03/04/1973 Pin 349
Same as Jonathan Smith 03/04/1973 Pin 349
Same as Johnny Smith 03/04/1973 Pin 349
However
Jonathan Smith 03/04/1973 Pin 139
Is a different person.
Jon Smith 03/04/1973 Pin 349
Same as Jonathan Smith 03/04/1973 Pin 349
Same as Johnny Smith 03/04/1973 Pin 349
However
Jonathan Smith 03/04/1973 Pin 139
Is a different person.
It's relatively common problem here in Russia when some people share the same full name and birthdate even in same region. Tax/debt collectors sometimes issue requests to wrong people because of that.
My anecdotal evidence points to police (and management and probably almost anyone who makes decisions based on limited sets of data) assuming that the narrative indicated by the data is unassailable, and very little thought is put into the possibility of the existence of counter-indicative evidence.
What's your anecdote? And where?
UK police, US police, or every country's police.....?
UK police, US police, or every country's police.....?
Police raided my house. Australia.
They didn't know I had kids in the house. They knew nothing about me except for the data that was rubber stamped as "enough" to justify eight police officers coming onto my house, taking $10k worth of computer equipment, and keeping it for eight months whilst they analysed it all and found nothing.
One side is the trauma to me and my family. The other side is the time, effort, and taxes that went into this rather than on anyone more likely than someone in my household.
All because that rely on potentially incriminating data only, without consideration for contra-indicative data (in my opinion).
My opinion of law enforcement competence dropped to near zero. And it's not necessarily the individuals, it's the system around them, the decisions about process etc. which is where stories like this article feel like the same root cause.
They didn't know I had kids in the house. They knew nothing about me except for the data that was rubber stamped as "enough" to justify eight police officers coming onto my house, taking $10k worth of computer equipment, and keeping it for eight months whilst they analysed it all and found nothing.
One side is the trauma to me and my family. The other side is the time, effort, and taxes that went into this rather than on anyone more likely than someone in my household.
All because that rely on potentially incriminating data only, without consideration for contra-indicative data (in my opinion).
My opinion of law enforcement competence dropped to near zero. And it's not necessarily the individuals, it's the system around them, the decisions about process etc. which is where stories like this article feel like the same root cause.
[deleted]
wccrawford(1)
I don't see something like this happening in Sweden where we have person numbers...