Parliament urges end to illegal profiling in law enforcement (Ilford South Liberal Democrats)

Ilford South Liberal Democrats <info@libdems.org.uk>

Parliament urges end to illegal profiling in law enforcement

April 23, 2009 1:15 PM
Originally published by Sarah Ludford MEP

There is increasing employment by police and other agencies of new technologies and techniques for collection, storage, use and exchange of personal information about individuals as a means to fight crime or terrorism. In addition, considerable concern exists that ethnicity and race can prejudicially influence law enforcement and immigration decisions.

Against this background, today the European Parliament is debating a report drafted by Sarah Ludford (UK, LibDem), which warns against the civil liberties and other dangers of 'profiling' European citizens based on assumptions. The report spells out the applicable data protection and anti-discrimination standards in an attempt to uphold the basic principles that law enforcement should be based on individual behaviour and equality under the law. It furthermore questions the effectiveness of profiling in combating crime and terrorism.

Sarah Ludford comments: "One major concern is the impact of stereotyping in street policing, immigration or counter-terrorism, where lazy and unfounded assumptions about propensity to crime or illegality may lead to unjustified stop and search, arrests or visa refusals amounting to illegal discrimination against black and Asian people."

"The other chief area of worry is about computerised searches of vast databases of our travel records, internet use, DNA, medical records, people we work with, etc. The purpose of this 'data-mining' would be to analyse behaviour patterns and characteristics to look for allegedly possible criminals or terrorists. The reason that profiling doesn't work is that to regard people as suspicious just because of what they look like or how they behave can distract from the search for the really dangerous."

"We need to avoid innocent people being subjected to arbitrary stops, interrogations, travel restrictions, surveillance or security alerts. A review of current laws is needed to clarify what is and is not acceptable."

You will find her report via the following link:

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sidesSearch/search.do?type=REPORT&language=EN&term=6&author=4529