No biggie, my responds was reactionary as well:)
Our government is not really popular, but not a group of power crazy maniac thank the gods (although they do sometimes want to make huge & stupid decisions IMHO).
I'm no expert, what I know I got from the media. But I'll try to answer your questions as well as possible.
I do believe there is a log of what agency and which worker placed the data & red flags. I can only assume that there is also an access log.
That log will probably not be available for public scrutiny, just from the people with access. This is because of privacy regulations. Otherwise everything might as well be on the streets, which is not allowed of course.
The data stored would be checked by the workers themselves and when contacting other agencies about their data.
Oh, almost forgot. They did mention very specifically that once a month, every agency worker involved in a certain case comes together to talk about the case in person. This would be a good place to do some error checking.
Again, I agree that when abused it would be dreadful. But for now, it works fine.
This is something to watch, absolutely. And I do believe this is watched closely. Should this go wrong I'll be one of the first to protest against it, but for now it's a working tool to prevent harm.
Hmmm, good points. firstly; my opening post was that I too am concerned about the possibilities this law gives. Especially because I live in Holland.
But the statement from the yahoo article is a bit much. Articles from our Dutch paper gave a bit more detail than this single epic sentence. The situation is not quite so grave.
I'm quite sure every pro-privacy is monotoring this situation. Just a promise from the goverment not to misuse the data is indeed not enough. But simply automaticly stating that this will immediately begin a big brother age like some people here would be a bit much.
The information is not provided to 'jeebus knows who'. It is provided to certified, professional social workers & police officers.
Yes, it is absolutely possible that one of those individuals misuses the system. However, this DB is not publicly available for exactly that reason and not everything shred of information is available to just any individual with access to the system, so the 'jeebus knows who' argument does not stand.
A big part of the incompetence of the social services is that they are usually oblivious to other problems or agencies involved in a case. So yes, I think this system would actually help. As far as I see the system, it allows social workers to see all relevant information about a case instead of having to call a dozen other agencies or read a stack of papers for every case.
Yes, I agree with that.
Now, I'm NO expert in this, but as far as I know, all criminal records will remain in the police DB as is standard with all criminal violations. But 5 years after the fact and punishment, you can ask for your record to be expunged.
But for any exact answers on how exactly the records function you should ask the creators. They didn't include a full spec. in the press message:)
In a elaboration about my previuous post, I forgot to include a few things.
Firstly; right now, al the system does is inform agencys already involved in a certain case, that other agencies are involved as well. This is important and isn't stated in the original newspost here. It was mentioned in Dutch news.
It does not give a small group of people all rights about a person, it gives people already trusted with care (social workers, police, etc) information that more people are working on a certain case.
secondly; arguments that this will mean that in 20 years everyone will be permanently tracked is a fallacy. Pointing out the potential problems & dangers is valuable, immediately jumping to big brother scenario's is not.
Also; immediately linking this DB to WWII is just stupid. I quite agree with Godwin's law; you just lost the argument because you failed to provide any reasenable arguments but instead just turned to hysteria.
thirdly; the Netherlands is not the USA. I'm pretty upset by your patriot act, but this isn't a copy. please don't treat it like one.
So if people feel obliged to link this system to others; my personal comparison would be automated police records. So that someone committing a crime in city A can be caught in city B. thats just how I think about it though, I'm aware the comparison doesn't strech all the way.
I do share the concern about oversealuous workers flagging somebody for life. From what I gather from the news, this would be difficult and involve a completely fake report. But I'm not quite sure.
All I can say is that the trials so far have produced good results.
Although I quite agree that this might have some huge possibilities for abuse, it helps save children. Here in the Netherlands, every year there are a few high profile cases where children are extremely abused and/or killed. Usually, afterwards it became know that quite a lot of social services were involved into the family, but didn't communicate with each other or that records simply 'vanished' because the family moved. in result; children die because social services are hugely incompetent. This system now automates the 'speaking to each other' part of the whole equation. FYI; in the province of Utrecht, this system has already been tested for a few months, with excellent results. I do completely agree this could be seen as a dangerous law, so far it actually does what it's meant to do; protect abused children. (To tell the truth; we're surprised the government actually does something like this right)
this is actually nothing new.
I am a student working on a robotproject at TU Delft, in holland.
there is a whole international competition for robotic soccer, with several competitions for different types of robots (we participate in the 4 legged AIBO league)
http://www.robocup.org/
the goal of all this is indeed to have a humanoid team playing against the human world soccer champion team in 2050, and winning.
but my point is; this is already going on for years, nothing new.
but the extra./ attention is nice though:)
Slashdot Mirror
No biggie, my responds was reactionary as well :)
Our government is not really popular, but not a group of power crazy maniac thank the gods (although they do sometimes want to make huge & stupid decisions IMHO).
I'm no expert, what I know I got from the media. But I'll try to answer your questions as well as possible.
I do believe there is a log of what agency and which worker placed the data & red flags. I can only assume that there is also an access log.
That log will probably not be available for public scrutiny, just from the people with access. This is because of privacy regulations. Otherwise everything might as well be on the streets, which is not allowed of course.
The data stored would be checked by the workers themselves and when contacting other agencies about their data.
Oh, almost forgot. They did mention very specifically that once a month, every agency worker involved in a certain case comes together to talk about the case in person. This would be a good place to do some error checking.
Again, I agree that when abused it would be dreadful. But for now, it works fine.
This is something to watch, absolutely. And I do believe this is watched closely. Should this go wrong I'll be one of the first to protest against it, but for now it's a working tool to prevent harm.
Hmmm, good points.
firstly; my opening post was that I too am concerned about the possibilities this law gives. Especially because I live in Holland.
But the statement from the yahoo article is a bit much. Articles from our Dutch paper gave a bit more detail than this single epic sentence. The situation is not quite so grave.
I'm quite sure every pro-privacy is monotoring this situation. Just a promise from the goverment not to misuse the data is indeed not enough. But simply automaticly stating that this will immediately begin a big brother age like some people here would be a bit much.
:) completely true.
The information is not provided to 'jeebus knows who'. It is provided to certified, professional social workers & police officers.
Yes, it is absolutely possible that one of those individuals misuses the system. However, this DB is not publicly available for exactly that reason and not everything shred of information is available to just any individual with access to the system, so the 'jeebus knows who' argument does not stand.
A big part of the incompetence of the social services is that they are usually oblivious to other problems or agencies involved in a case. So yes, I think this system would actually help. As far as I see the system, it allows social workers to see all relevant information about a case instead of having to call a dozen other agencies or read a stack of papers for every case.
Yes, I agree with that. Now, I'm NO expert in this, but as far as I know, all criminal records will remain in the police DB as is standard with all criminal violations. But 5 years after the fact and punishment, you can ask for your record to be expunged. But for any exact answers on how exactly the records function you should ask the creators. They didn't include a full spec. in the press message :)
In a elaboration about my previuous post, I forgot to include a few things. Firstly; right now, al the system does is inform agencys already involved in a certain case, that other agencies are involved as well. This is important and isn't stated in the original newspost here. It was mentioned in Dutch news. It does not give a small group of people all rights about a person, it gives people already trusted with care (social workers, police, etc) information that more people are working on a certain case. secondly; arguments that this will mean that in 20 years everyone will be permanently tracked is a fallacy. Pointing out the potential problems & dangers is valuable, immediately jumping to big brother scenario's is not. Also; immediately linking this DB to WWII is just stupid. I quite agree with Godwin's law; you just lost the argument because you failed to provide any reasenable arguments but instead just turned to hysteria. thirdly; the Netherlands is not the USA. I'm pretty upset by your patriot act, but this isn't a copy. please don't treat it like one. So if people feel obliged to link this system to others; my personal comparison would be automated police records. So that someone committing a crime in city A can be caught in city B. thats just how I think about it though, I'm aware the comparison doesn't strech all the way. I do share the concern about oversealuous workers flagging somebody for life. From what I gather from the news, this would be difficult and involve a completely fake report. But I'm not quite sure. All I can say is that the trials so far have produced good results.
Although I quite agree that this might have some huge possibilities for abuse, it helps save children.
Here in the Netherlands, every year there are a few high profile cases where children are extremely abused and/or killed. Usually, afterwards it became know that quite a lot of social services were involved into the family, but didn't communicate with each other or that records simply 'vanished' because the family moved. in result; children die because social services are hugely incompetent.
This system now automates the 'speaking to each other' part of the whole equation.
FYI; in the province of Utrecht, this system has already been tested for a few months, with excellent results.
I do completely agree this could be seen as a dangerous law, so far it actually does what it's meant to do; protect abused children.
(To tell the truth; we're surprised the government actually does something like this right)
this is actually nothing new. I am a student working on a robotproject at TU Delft, in holland. there is a whole international competition for robotic soccer, with several competitions for different types of robots (we participate in the 4 legged AIBO league) http://www.robocup.org/ the goal of all this is indeed to have a humanoid team playing against the human world soccer champion team in 2050, and winning. but my point is; this is already going on for years, nothing new. but the extra ./ attention is nice though :)
this is good reading. the battle of nerd vs managemend with real courage i'm inspired by this while working overtime on some coding myself