Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-04-23-Speech-4-526"
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"en.20090423.72.4-526"2
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"Madam President, over the past decade, laws and practices have been introduced enabling the retention and exchange of huge volumes of personal data. Currently the EU itself is proposing a number of measures that facilitate profiling, a technique of pulling together data from various sources in order to make a sort of template against which are identified those people whose characteristics, behaviour or associates seem suspicious and who merit further screening as likely perpetrators of crime or terrorism.
Counterterrorism efforts focus the spotlight on Asians, especially those of Pakistani origin. Thirty-two per cent of British Muslims report being subject to discrimination at airports. There is a great risk of alienating these people, who may then end up not cooperating with the police, ultimately hindering security.
This report therefore asks for European or national legislation on profiling to be brought in compliance with existing European law and international treaties. If possible, all safeguards for profiling should be drawn together in a single legal instrument.
Besides the legal assessment, further studies should be conducted into the proportionality and effectiveness of profiling. The Fundamental Rights Agency and the European Data Protection Supervisor, in their respective capacities, should play a key role in those studies.
Finally, if profiling is to be used legally and fairly as a means of contributing to the maintenance of security, a coherent and just legal framework must be established.
There has also been a move in policing towards a predictive and preventive approach which, while not without value in some circumstances, can lead to repressive measures against innocent people based on stereotyping, often on the basis of race or even religion.
The reason I am concerned about profiling and data-mining is because they depart from the general rule that law-enforcement decisions should be based on an individual’s personal conduct. The danger exists that an innocent person may be subject to arbitrary stops, interrogations or travel disruption. Then, if that flagging of them as a person of interest is not promptly removed, longer-term restrictions could follow, such as refusal of visas and entry, bans on employment or even arrest and detention.
In a world of increasing international exchange of data, the identification of someone as a person of security or policing interest, if not corrected, could have not only inconvenient or expensive but indeed appalling consequences. One need only remember that Canadian torture flight victim, Maher Arrar – on whose horrendous experience the film ‘Rendition’ was based – was picked up due to profiling based on people his brother happened to know; having done nothing himself to merit suspicion, he nonetheless spent seven months in a Syrian torture dungeon.
The report I am presenting to you has benefited greatly from the considerable input of the shadow rapporteurs, whom I warmly thank. It outlines human rights, data protection and non-discrimination standards in an attempt to uphold two basic principles for any profiling exercise to meet: that repressive consequences should be based on individual behaviour, and that the principle of equality under the law should be upheld.
Not all profiling raises legal objections. We are all familiar with thrillers where the psychologist is called in to draw up a criminal profile of the murder suspect; and if a witness gives a clear description, a profile – of a bank robber, let us say: white, male and 30 – it would be nonsense to arrest someone who was Asian, female and about 50.
The most obvious risk of profiling is on the basis of ethnicity or race. If used by police officers as the only basis of deciding whom to stop, search or arrest, it is lazy, misguiding stereotyping, which amounts to illegal discrimination against minorities.
There is much concern about the victimisation of Roma people in this way. In my own city, London, the impact on young black men has led to tougher guidelines and safeguards – none of which, it must be stressed, should impede the intelligence-led investigation of crime.
Besides concerns regarding legitimacy, I strongly question the effectiveness of profiling. To keep looking for suspicious people on the basis of looks or behaviour can distract from the search for those who are really dangerous. There is also the risk of the real criminals adapting to the profile by using innocent-looking people as drug mules or suicide bombers or by changing travel routes away from those monitored."@en1
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