Do we even have a procedure for that? And does it matter that they were cleared of the charges? [Radley Balko]
Chronicling the high cost of our legal system
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Removing oneself from an “offender list” is just one example of a general problem which afflicts not only the public sector but the private sector. My application to rent an apartment was denied because of a supposed criminal record. Since I have no criminal record, I objected. After a couple of months of digging (sending notarized letters, and filling out forms to verify that I had a right to see my own background check), I found that a background-checking agency had misinterpreted a court document. But here’s the fun part. Background-checking agencies sell data to each other. Through an online forum I made contact with someone who claimed to have been a database software developer for such agencies. His advice was that my erroneous data would propagate from one service to another, faster than I could ever track it down, lodge appeals, and (perhaps) neutralize it.
So I gave up. But this is one area where a single, centralized, government-style database may be easier to deal with. Or at least, the problem may be intractable in a different way.
Distributed databases are like the Internet. Can’t delete from that either. So either you can’t delete because it’s impossible to find anyone responsible or can’t delete because the central authority won’t do it.
The real problem is that these poor people were added to a list because they were merely accused. This is a massive violation of their rights, but nobody cares.
What a world
You could sue the brass ones off of the original company and as part of the settlement make them responsible for tracking down and removing the propagations.
Where would I get such an idea?
The Google folks are search geniuses. They should be able to get rid of invalid listing.
Is there any data at all that registries work in the sense of reducing crime? I doubt it, and it is a terrible punishment for the potentiality of wrong doing and a burden on police departments.
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