Pub photo-share warning
The Government's privacy watchdog has urged pubs not to let the public see pictures of banned troublemakers.
It follows concerns about "discrepancies" over how pubs and other businesses share images of banned individuals.
The advice, from the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), is seen as crucial for pubwatch groups that want to continue circulating pictures.
The advice comes in a letter, seen by the Morning Advertiser, from ICO lead policy officer David Reynolds to Mike Schuck, chief executive of umbrella group Action Against Business Crime.
Reynolds said processing personal data to cut crime on businesses is "valid and legitimate" but there's "uncertainty" about how publicly available the data should be.
He highlighted the argument that letting the public see names and pictures would help cut crime because the public could alert businesses to breaches.
"This may seem reasonable enough but I am concerned of the risk to an individual and the potential harm or distress this could cause them if they were incorrectly identified or were in the wrong place at the wrong time and caught up quite innocently in an incident."
He is "not convinced that releasing the personal details would give extra weight to any scheme". And there's a "very real risk of mistaken identity".
Reynolds said exclusions "can be made on the spur of the moment quite arbitrarily" so making them public "may be seen as wholly unfair by someone excluded without any real proof".
He is "not fully convinced" that the deterrent argument is valid. It could even be seen as a "badge of honour" by troublemakers, and "word of mouth" may be sufficient.
Reynolds said data on convictions should only be available for five weeks, so to keep personal details of people banned from businesses indefinitely is "odd".
