there was a lively debate about the surveillance society on here a while ago.

a few people said they had nothing to hide and believed that employers were far too responsible to use personal data against them.

still believe that?

Quite.

a more educated take on it http://ubisurv.wordpress.com/

so they broke the law and are being procecuted?

are you saying all laws are bad and should be repealed? Or just this one which appears to be working in this case?

😯

eh?

I think that 15 years of getting away with this illegally is something of a failure on the law’s part

Quite funny to see Peter Mandelson on the news this morning ‘bigging up’ the intervention of the Information Commissioner – all just a few weeks after the Government vetoed the IC’s ruling on the release of information relating to the legal basis for the Iraq war…

Isn’t this just an industry wide fast track personal reference system? If I was an arse at work (I’m not, just on here) then I wouldn’t really have a place to complain if I applied for another job and didn’t even get an interview because the unoffical reference already stored on a date base said exactly that – he’s an arse at work (which I’m not, just on here).
If I was an employer, I’d be very interested in joining the group with access to the information so I didn’t waste time interviewing people who were arses at work.
Then again, I really don’t get the big problem with I.D. cards either.

so….you once raised a health and safety issue in your work place or were a shop steward.

this clearly makes you unemployable.

good luck with that.

I take it some of you did not read it properly it said that people who raised health and safety concerns were blacklisted.How can anyone defend these actions?

..or if you’d had an argument with someone and they decided to blacklist you?
No comebacks, no informing you of their actions.

I hope that the purchasers of the information are suable, too.

it’d be good to see a big class action. the unions will be all over this

So…pointing out to my line manager that the big gas cylinder leaning against the wall and not chained up to stop it falling over, going off like a missile and killing untold numbers thus having the MD in court then prison and the company closed down would mean the person reporting it would be ‘blacklisted’ for his troubles? If that’s your train of thought, good luck with that.
If I was a shop steward? That would never happen. Never have and never will have anything to do with unions.
Basically, at work I do the best I can for me, the people I work with, the service users and the company/authority I work for and take it from there. Not caused me any problems so far in life.
I am a litho printer and plate maker by trade. Sadly, I was involved in an accident at work that resulted in a perforated lung, both ear drums perforated, right arm almost ripped off and various internal injuries that I will have lifetime repercussions (large bowel and a couple of other things). Following this accident, I was in a surgical hospital for 12 weeks and then a psychie’ hospital for 8 months. I sued the pants off of the company and have declared it to each employer I’ve had since. It doesn’t seem to have been a problem getting a job thus far. I can well imagine being an obstanate work shy flop on the other hand (if that was declared by me or some industry wide fast track reference service) would have me off the shortlist within seconds and fair play to it or them.
Classic case of reap what you sew.
I don’t mind particularly having my credit card company track my spending habits and targeting me for certain advertising either. I like what I like and I’ll buy what I want if I can afford it. I have no objection to CCTV on every lampost or DNA being taken at birth.

good god, a printer who can’t see past the end of his nose.

I certainly wouldn’t employ you.

oh dear…bye.

oh dear indeed. barca but you really need to rethink this. your logic is distinctly flawed. your honesty in declaring your accident and subsequent actions to seak redress to each and every employer you’ve had since would count for nought if you never got as far as interview stage because someone alleged in a secret list that the accident you had was your fault.
reap what you sew (sic) indeed.

‘If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear’ is one of the most dangerous and inaccurate statements I have ever heard and leads to a very scary place.

What if you have the misfortune to have the same name as someone who is on the list when you aren’t?

Couldn’t happen? Oh yes it could and it has. What about all the people on whom a CRB check was done and their names were confused with someone else? They were branded as rapists and murderers etc, and the government’s response was basically ‘it’s your fault for sharing a name with someone’.

Even if you have nothing to hide you still have everything to fear from a surveillance society.

The other one that scares me is ‘it’s not too bad, we can live with [insert new law / regulation here].

I bet a lot of people unfortunate enough to be Jewish or gay or gypsy or Jehovah’s Witness or Catholic and living in Germany (and quite a few other places to boot) thought like that and look what happened to them…

We should all be suspicious of any apparent attempt to limit our freedom: and let’s not forget about ‘function creep’: who wouold have thought that anti-terror legislation would be use to freeze the assets of a foreign country who happened to be a bit skint?

Don’t be afraid: be very, very afraid.

I received 60% of the funds awarded by the court though Del because I was judged to have been 40% responsible for my own injuries. This is also declared.
Maybe I look at life in a far too simplistic way. Keeps me and mine happy though.

so let me get this straight, because they “got away withit for 15 years” the law is useless?

what about murder, rape, extortion, blackmail, if i get away with it for 15 years should the entire basis of the laws against it be repealed? Quick let the Crays out, theres been a huge missundertanding, STW forgives them!

spoon, i’m pretty sure you’ve grabbed the wrong end of the stick and thrown it beyond the reach of even the fittest dog here.

has anyone mentioned repealing laws?

barca, i’m sorry, i don’t mean to use the unfortunate events in your life as an example, but you brought them up. my point stands. what if you never got interviews for all those subsequent jobs because of what you’d been through, and the companies involved had blacklisted you? you’d never know. there’d be nothing you could do about it.

No need to apologise Del, it’s all good.

mrmichaelwright you should be careful with your own details. I work for a production company who use freelance AV technicians. From the information you have made public on here I know that you are a freelancer in the same area of work and I might also surmise that you were a bit of a bolshy …..
So I might then decline to get in touch with you regarding future employment opportunities. So you are right, we really are watching you 🙂

Tremendous avdave2, well funny. Have a virtual beer on me.

its fairly apathetic having a winge about a law, then not asking for it to be repealed?

cheers avdave, if you are the kind of company that employs contractors on the strength of their views posted on internet forums then you can keep your work

[EDIT] there was supposed to be a 😉 in there

barca – in case there has been a misunderstanding, my comment was about the short-sightedness of your post and it’s complete irrelevance to the subject in hand. It had nothing to do with your misfortune about which you clearly (and quite rightly for all i know) feel very strongly

spoon – you are going to have to explain this to me. I posted a link to a news story which I was using to demonstrate the danger of the ‘nothing to hide’ mentality. I have not at any point expressed an opinion on the governments data protection laws. It is not the laws in place to protect that are the problem, more the hypocrisy of repeatedly violating or at least attempting to violate our privacy whilst continuing to praise it’s own laws to protect it.

no problem with DNA taken at birth? wtf?

so if it becomes possible to identify people who may at some point have a heart disease or other illness this info can be used in the same way as the story here and youre turned down for jobs?

why on earth would you want your DNA taken? so we can prosecute criminals? if we all have registered DNA no-one commits a crime and gets away with it?

From the information you have made public on here I know that you are a freelancer in the same area of work

doesn’t take a genius to do that, stick my user name in google!

what is this google of which you speak?

i use the power of mind to determine information on forum posters.

yes im getting…he’s a freelancer….his name….his name…hmm, does the letter M mean anything to you?……is it michelle?

I was only michelle to school bullies

you’d certainly be able to determine that i am a very poor website designer and gave up on the whole thing years ago 😀

better yet, you can get pictures of him online!!! for perverts to leer over.

lol you mostly get pictures I’ve posted on here

in fact in 6 pages of google images 1 is of me and most of the rest seem to be A&A 😯

Every week there are people posting on here looking for employment advice. Most of them appear to have been unfairly treatred. Most of them are not union members. If they were they would get free advice and representation ( well for the cost of their subs)

Most union stewards are motivated by the desire to help their fellow workers and they provide a very useful check and balance to unscrupulous management.

So barca you think it’s fine for construction companies to act illegally ? And apparently they were fully aware that they were acting illegally as presumably, that was the reason why they falsely denied using the services of a Blacklisting company.

.

You also think it’s fine that if someone joins a trade union, they should be permanently denied the right of employment, the right to earn a living, for the rest of their lives – forever ? You believe that it is in effect, fine to treat someone who joins a trade union worst than a criminal ?

.

So that I get a better picture as to what sort of person you are barca, tell me, did you admire these two generals ?

Because the sort of society which you apparently aspire to, is only normally achieved by the bloody military overthrow of a democratically elected government, and the establishment of a hated fascist dictatorship. As was clearly the case with generals Pinochet and Franco.

I do so hope barca works a 12 hr day 6 days a week with no paid holidays, no sick pay and should he become unemployed won’t ever take any benefits – cos without unions that would be his lot.

Pinochet and Franco…. moustache looks a bit similar, and you never saw them together did you….. Hmmmmm, two wages for the same job in two different countries, wonder what Union he was in?

I think some of the posters on this thread need to wind their necks in a bit.

As an employer I’d quite like to know some relevant info about potential employees, equally I’m not interested in bullshit about said potential employees.

With regard the unions are we all to young/old to remember how they **** up britsh industry sometime ago.

I would like to think that a nice reality would be that if you are or have been a cock at work and caused significant problems then you should become unemployable. Basically if you are moron/lazy/difficult then why should I waste my money on employing you and then have the grief of getting rid?

Equally if you are a good working/intelligent/contributing memeber of the team then you should be rewarded.

If you fall into the second category how pissed off would you be if you missed a job/promotion becuase the employer was unaware of anothers poor performance/behaviour?

Could keep on with this but I’m gonna stop now cos I think there will be many comebacks to answer.

I am old enough to have been a union member and activist for 30 yrs and I have seen many people get great service from their unions – saving ordinary folk for unfair treatment. As for the 70s union f ups – it would be hard to deny but it takes too to have a fight. How come Germany has high union membership and low industrial action – simply because management listen to the concerns of the workforce. Happy workers are productive, unhappy ones are not.

Its no coincidence we have weak unions now and worse terms and conditions as well as lower productivity than our European counterparts.

As an employer I’d quite like to know some relevant info about potential employees

So you wouldn’t be bothered about the Data Protection Act then ?

I would suggest that as an employer if you weren’t concerned with operating within the law, you should be forced to cease all your business activities, and prosecuted for any offences committed.

Or do you think employers are above the law ?