e767pmk@yahoo.co.uk
Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2017 17:49:39 +0000
There was a small item in the 'Metro' giveaway newspaper for March 14th
(can't find it on-line but http://metro.co.uk/) about a guy from Sheffield,
England, who was arrested and bailed under strict conditions by the police
in July 2011 suspected of illegally downloading images of child abuse. It
turned out that the police's request to the ISP had erroneously had an extra
digit added to the IP address, so he was mistakenly put under investigation.
After a long legal battle he won a significant sum in compensation, though
the suspicion remains forever.
Now that much criminal evidence is increasingly based on computer records --
not just web surfing and e-mail traffic details but also utility bills,
telephone usage, and such like -- one wonders how this sort of RISK can be
handled. On one hand, there's the chance of genuine errors causing innocent
people to be caught up as shown above, while on the other hand it may be
easier to fabricate 'evidence' to maliciously get people into trouble. How
easy is it to challenge this sort of thing in court? After all, most
Internet users probably wouldn't know what their IP address is, or even what
an IP address is.