Asylum seeker spreadsheet data blurt: UK Home Office loses appeal to limit claimants

The British Home Office's bid to reduce the number of potential claimants from a 2013 data breach that exposed the personal details of thousands of asylum seekers has been knocked back by the Court of Appeal. Rather than simply publishing overall statistics on the family returns process – the system by which children who have …

[IneptAdept]

Ripe For False Claims

I agree with the ruling in part, but I believe this could open up the flood gates for a lot of false claims.

If a lead complainant was to make a claim and suddenly 10 members all suddenly come out of the wood work, where do we stand ?

I think of course the government should be held liable as in some cases this really could be a dangerous incident.

But at the same time maybe it should be limited to lead complainant and spouse.

[Cpt Blue Bear]

Re: Ripe For False Claims

"I agree with the ruling in part, but I believe this could open up the flood gates for a lot of false claims.

If a lead complainant was to make a claim and suddenly 10 members all suddenly come out of the wood work, where do we stand ?"

A fine piece of What-iffery.

You'll stand exactly where you are. Applicants will still have to prove they are affected by being outed to their murderous former-rulers when their known associates whereabouts were splashed about for the whole world to see. All this ruling does is slap down the Home Office's defense that only those whose names are on the wrongly released documents are to be compensated. Nothing more.

[Doctor Syntax]

"The Home Office has been contacted for comment."

I'd like to see their comments as to whether this spreadsheet was the actual tool used for day-to-day management of their operations, why nobody checked to see if it was the appropriate form of this data for release and what in-house IT expertise they have for supporting staff.

It looks suspiciously like the consequence of the "if the only thing you have is a hammer..." approach to using spreadsheets for everything.

[Trollslayer]

Ghurknas, Afghan interpreters were betrayed as well

By some unspeakable pieces of shit like this.

[SImon Hobson]

After what I've been reading ...

This does not surprise me at all. It seems that the Home Office is institutionally incompetent - not just implementing bad policies, but incompetent in handling just about everything. It's clear from some of the complaints levelled against them that they have no systems in place to do the job properly.

Things like losing important documents (e.g. foreign passports, marriage certificates), meaning that people are left in limbo - unable to get on with their lives (no passport or driving licence means you can't prove you are who you say you are, can't get a job, can't rent a home, and are really lucky if the Home Office doesn't suddenly decide you are an illegal immigrant and start the process to chucking you out.

Even if they don't decide to throw you oout, not having such documents can screw your life up - such as having your bank account frozen because you can't prove your identity.

Or using minor errors on tax returns to label you as a terrorist and throw you out.

But worst of all, they seem to have a policy whereby they can declare someone an illegal immigrant/terrorist/whatever and the process isn't put on hold pending appeals. I.e. they can screw someone over and leave them unemployable, homeless, etc while the Home Office take their leisurely time over deciding if they made (yet another) mistake.