NO2ID

Trade in sensitive personal data uncovered by secret investigation

C4's Dispatches records private investigator selling bank details and criminal and medical records to reporters

Mark Townsend

Saturday 12 May 2012 20.30

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/may/12/trade-personal-data-secret-investigation

The ease with which private investigators can access highly personal and sensitive information stored in secure government databases has been exposed by a report that will intensify calls to regulate the industry.

An investigation by Channel 4's Dispatches programme reveals how a London firm of private detectives sold personal data on individuals, including details of bank accounts, benefit claims and even a national insurance number.

Undercover reporters also recorded Stephen Anderson, director of private investigators Crown Intelligence, disclosing medical details including the name of one of the volunteers' doctors, recent appointments with a GP and, in one instance, confirmation of a medical condition...

The programme, to be shown tomorrow, also shows Anderson making extraordinary allegations that Scotland Yard secretly and frequently uses private detectives to assist with investigations.

Hidden cameras film him claiming that the Met had approached him to uncover information that the police could not.

At one point, Anderson asked a Dispatches undercover reporter whether they were working for the Met. When questioned why he would ask that, Anderson replied: "We've had over the years, surprisingly or not surprisingly, quite a lot of requests from the police to do investigations."...

After the Murdoch enquiry, you have to raise questions about how corrupt are our police...

Murdoch's driver now has a list of corrupt police officers that he's giving to the Leveson Inquiry.

If the database state starts to keep info - then we need a list of every officer and their ID that's ever accessed information - to identify bent coppers before we get to corrupt employees of corporations like News International.

Things are getting out of hand with this database state corruption.