Good intelligence can make police decision-making more efficient and effective, but the consequences of flawed intelligence can be devastating – and not just for individuals.
False information can undermine our attempts to combat terrorism. If young men ripe for radicalisation are unfairly targeted due to inaccurate intelligence, they can be driven into the arms of recruiters. And in all communities, not just those of Middle Eastern origin, police action based on flawed intelligence diminishes the trust in law enforcement that is so valuable in ensuring members co-operate with police to keep everyone safe.
Given these risks, our story today raising serious questions about the integrity of the NSW Police Force database demands a serious response.
The Computerised Operational Policing System database has let the community down before. The force had to pay out $1.85 million to scores of young people wrongly arrested, imprisoned and even strip searched due to errors in the database. It took years and a class action for the problem to be addressed and the victims compensated.
The statement from the force regarding the latest allegations suggests it considers this new case closed and not a catalyst for a systemic investigation of the database's checks and balances.
Yet procedures ensuring the accuracy of the COPS appear to be flawed to the point where flimsy information supposedly linking a man to the Comancheros resulted in him being constantly harassed. Incredibly, this false report was reviewed and shared with crime squads and the Australian Crime Commission. This indicates a need to beef up procedures to ensure COPS data is not merely supposition and is properly verified.
However, with 34 million records on the system as of last year and an estimated 2 million more added each year, it is inevitable that some inaccurate data will be added – unintentionally or otherwise – and it is unrealistic to assume any verification system will capture every problem.
People must be able to correct the record when the system lets them down. But finding out what COPS says about you and amending it is a complex, time-consuming and often fruitless ordeal. It is crucial that better avenues are available to genuine cases to challenge and correct errors.
Of course, there are limits to transparency given the need for operational secrecy, but at the moment the balance is too far in favour of the institution rather than the individual, and the system is too inclined to protect officers who fail in their duties.
The creation of a service that could give independent advice to those navigating the police complaints system or funding community legal centres to do the same could help redress the balance.
This is urgent given the Baird government's expansion of police powers. Under new laws, senior police – not judges – will have the right to make "public safety orders", which can prevent people from attending particular events, premises or areas for a specific period of time, even if a person is not charged with or has not been convicted of a crime. Contravention carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. Conceivably information from within the COPS system could contribute to the making of such an order.
Without better safeguards the potential for injustice is significant and the price of not acting too great.