Far be it from me to say that the Court of Appeal has got it wrong, but... no, wait. The Court of Appeal has got it wrong. As told here, with more details on the absurdity of the relevant examples here, the Court has held that even generation-old, spent convictions should be represented on the criminal records database:
Five police forces which challenged a ruling that they should delete records on criminal convictions from their database have won their appeal.
The court of appeal said convictions, however old and however minor, can be of value in the fight against crime.
Absent any specific example of how a 25 year old conviction for lifting a packet of crisps can be of any assistance, I think that's spurious.
The reason that this matters is that people are getting kicked back for jobs because of such convictions. This is crazy. We have a Rehabilitation of Offenders Act in this country, which tries to do exactly what it says on the tin – rehabilitate people back into society.
However, the Police are effectively stymieing this by retaining data from age-old, spent convictions, which then go on to show up when people apply for jobs a generation later.
The Court, rather than give guidance on how such old, isolated, spent convictions could or should be used in a reasonable or rational way, just gives the boys in blue and the database state continued carte blanche with this judgment. The Court states that the rationale for retaining the information is much more persuasive than the rationale for disclosing it to anyone - but when or how will that differentiation actually be manifested? No help here...
The benefit to the police of retaining the samples is minimal. The cost to the individuals, as these stories show, can be huge – indeed, potentially life-ruining.
So, to our learned Court, Big Brother Watch says... d'oh.