Where freedom of information and privacy collide...

Banking details given to Wikileaks.

What do we think?

By Alex Deane

Hat tip: FAMD

Comments

[Blank]

This shouldn't be leaked. Whatever arguments people have in favour of the current torrent of Wikileaks files, they surely can't apply to the personal information of private individuals.

People may not like bankers etc right now (and the legitimacy of their vilification is a whole other discussion) but that doesn't give one the right to basically ransack their personal data.

We also have to remember the principle that evidence inappropriately obtained is inadmissible, regardless of how damaging/useful it may be. Due process exists for a reason.

It's not the job of 'data vigilantees' to start their own hack-job 'investigations'. We know nothing of the qualifications or prejudices of the people who will trawl this data (and I bet they'd object to their data being pasted across newspapers) - they are entirely unaccountable. Were is the right to face one's accuser here?

But we can be sure that the innocent and guilty alike (if their are any of the latter) will be tarred equally by any Wikileaks 'revelations'. To what end does this go?

I don't think it's too much to say that the very rule of law, in that everyone is treated equally (and therefore everyone's data privacy should be respected equally) is under attack here.

This prying into private data is usually the preserve of governments, and they are rightly despised for it - let's not stoop to their level.

[Andrew Taylor]

@Blank makes a passionate plea for his case, but I am not entirely convinced.

I agree with part of what he says.

However, details of any thieving been carried out by these individuals should be listed in full. By thieving, I am referring to tax evasion and not tax avoidance which is legitimate.

In the case of thieves, this should include the name of the person and their email addresses so that the public can show there disdain in the words of their choice. And to make it easier for the authorities to catch them.

The worse aspect of thieving is, of course, thieving from the tax payer. Tax evasion comes under this sphere as does the fiddling of MPs expenses.

[Andrew Taylor]

This lead me to wonder how many people in the UK are tax payers?

Well as 90% of adults of working age are employed, that would be quite a few. In addition many retired people also pay tax on their pensions so add them to the number.

You also have people who are unemployed who will have to pay tax when they find work as JSA is a taxable benefit. Then there are the people with unearned income who also pay tax.

Plus virtually anyone with a savings account will also be paying tax unless they fall into an excluded group.

I would guess the majority of people pay Income Tax and all of them pay VAT on what they buy and on services such as gas, electricity and water etc.

So effectively everyone is paying tax.

So if you steal from the tax payer you are virtually stealing, in one go, from fifty million people - most children don't pay tax or have savings.

[David C]

We need to see what the data is before we can judge. If a director of procurement at the MOD, or at a large city council, for example, has a Swiss bank account into which large sums of money have been paid coincident with the awarding of contracts, do they have a right to privacy?
I think the public interest defence will apply in certain cases but not others.

[ConsultantsUnlt]

This fellow isn't the "classic" whistleblower. He's more the classic thief/lawbreaker.
What would be important is the provenances of the info he receives. Is it more reliable than he is?
Without that I doubt he could "lie straight in bed"

[ohno]

He is abusing his position of trust and breaking the law. He is doing this to further his own ends and he should be prosecuted for this. It is not for him to release personal, confidential details of individuals. If he is genuinely concerned that wrongs have been committed then he could go through due process and bring it to the attention of the proper authorities. He does himself no favours in doing this and Wikileaks should not make matters worse by publishing the data.

[Frederick Cowell]

This is 100% justified if these people did not want their details blown they really should not have decided to engage in tax avoidance on such a ridiculous scale. That money could have paid for hospitals, schools and would have made some of the national debt more manageable. Morally it is just and in one of these hard cases subsuming senses of moral guilt into the performance of legal formalism should not be a defence for the greedy.

More to the point those who engage in this behaviour must lose some of the expectation of anonymity that they currently enjoy. Ultimately that is the only way that they will be deterred from basically taking money from less fortunate and hard working.

Anyway Assange will edit some of the material so it's a matter of degree. If he publishes enough info. so that the guilty can be shamed fair enough. But I don't want the children of a greedy banker being subject to harassment so I hope that there is a sensible

[NeverSurrender]

I have to agree with Blank and those others who think that this should not be leaked. It is perfectly acceptable to hold those who supposedly act on our behalf to account but, it is not right to divulge information about private individuals. There is absolutely nothing wrong with trying to reduce the amount of tax one pays. I am sure that 99.9% of people would avoid paying unnecessary tax if they were able to. Perhaps people would not mind paying tax so much if it were not so ridiculously high in this country.

[rc]

I agree with Blank, and have nothing to add to or subtract from his comment.