I'm sorry to say, but this is absolutely disgusting. How horrifying for that poor man. Hope he gets his fight back, there just needs to be more severe penalties for mistreatment like this. This is a totally different scenario but reminds me when police kill someone they think has a weapon but is just holding a toy, or when police kill someone that looks like a criminal they're looking for. The sad outcome is most of the time they get off scott free...
>there just needs to be more severe penalties for mistreatment like this.
So, what should these severe penalties be? When someone makes a data entry mistake that's corrected (as in this case), should they lose their job? Maybe be thrown in prison for a few years? I imagine dealing with programming errors like this would serve as some pretty effective encouragement for better practices. Of course, people might simply choose to avoid any actions that could result in errors.
In this case, the police refused to give him any information after the fact, forcing him to hire a lawyer. The police only apologised after a lawyer got involved, not after they realised that they had arrested the wrong man. Additionally only having an IP address to go on, they chose to arrest him (I'm assuming because he's a man) rather than the person whose name was on the account.
So, the penalty shouldn't be for a mistake. The penalty should be for trying to cover up the mistake over years, and for profiling him based on zero supporting evidence.
Of course people make mistakes, but there are two issues here, first is that the party that made the mistake did not own up to it (it took six years and a lawyer to get [partial] resolution). Second, is that when the result of one's actions have meaningful and potentially devastating consequences, there is a presumed higher expectation of accuracy.
"We're amputating his left leg today, or was it his right?"
This issue shouldn't be of "data entry", the IP should have been registered by software not someone typing it using a number pad; what this tells me is that they don't have the most basic safety checks in order to avoid mistakes; I bet part of the problem is that they are more likely to use their gov funds in new patrol cars than in proper TDD software.
Transfer of income pension rights to the affected party for the period in question. Mistakes are inevitable but unwillingness to correct a mistake should incur a stiff penalty. The fact that the police blew off his request with a dishonest excuse is itself criminal.
