Type: Advice Update

Google’s ‘right to be forgotten’ – but does it help people with convictions?

We’ve published a new section of information looking the recent ‘right to be forgotten’ issue which relates to Google’s search results. We’ve copied this section below, and the specific section will be regularly updated as we learn more about how it works in practice.

We are looking for evidence of whether people have been successful in getting Google or others to remove search results and/or online content. We have a dedicated policy section on the main Unlock website explaining more about this’

Summary

You might have seen in the news recently that Google has launched a system where people can request information be removed from Google’s search results. This has come about because of a ruling on the 13th May by the Court of Justice of the European Union. The case was brought by a Spanish man who complained that an auction notice of his repossessed home on Google’s search results infringed his privacy. The court found in his favour, and this has potentially wide-reaching consequences for search engines like Google.

The ruling only covers the removing of the search results – the information will still exist on the website that published the original article but Google won’t be able to deliver matches to some enquiries that are entered. Deletion of the original information would still be the responsibility of the website owner, and in our experience, it’s very rare that websites agree to remove details relating to convictions (see more in reporting of criminal records in the media).

Information will only disappear from searches made in Europe. Queries piped through its sites outside the EU will still show the relevant search results.

However, many people are still seeing the ruling as a potential way of dealing with the ‘google-effect’ that often haunts people for lots of different reasons, and our Helpline and Forum have already seen this being raised by quite a few people when it comes to past convictions that have been reported online. So the important question for us is whether it will actually help people with convictions?

Is it likely to help people with convictions?

At the moment, the answer is that we simply don’t know. That’s why we want to encourage people with spent convictions to submit a request (see ‘What next’ below) to see how Google are dealing with requests like this.

Google itself has admitted that their system is their “initial effort” at complying with the Court’s judgement, and there’s little evidence of how they’re dealing with individual applications. It’s also worth bearing in mind that the judgement surprised many people, including Google themselves, and initial reports suggest that they’re being swamped with requests, with some suggesting that Google has been receiving over 10,000 requests per day. The ruling applies to other search engines too (e.g. Yahoo, Bing).

Google has said that information would start to be removed from mid-June and that decisions about data removal would be made by people rather than an algorithm which governs almost every part of Google’s search system.

Future updates

This update will be used to start a new section, titled ‘The Google Effect’. We will be using this page to add further information about how this issue progresses in the coming weeks and months.

The Disclosure & Barring Service update the question they ask about convictions

Following our complaint to the Information Commissioners Office which recently led to the Disclosure & Barring Service signing an undertaking to update their application form, we have now had it confirmed by the DBS that their application form has now been updated. A copy of this is below.

e55

As you can see from the above image, the question (e.55) now asks only about convictions, cautions, reprimands or final warnings which would not be filtered. This means that, if your conviction or caution would be filtered at the time of completing the application, you can tick “no”.

You can find out more about completing a criminal record check application.

How do you know if you conviction or caution will be filtered? The DBS should be including guidance with the application form. We have also produced a simple guide and a detailed guide that should also help.

We’ve produced a simple guide on the DBS ‘filtering’ process

We know how complicated the criminal records process can be.

The ‘filtering’ process that came in in May 2013 has been quite a culture shock to many people who were previously told that all cautions and convictions would come back on standard and enhanced checks.

At the time, we developed a detailed guide on filtering.

But, through our helpline, we’ve been finding it quite difficult to make filtering simple and easy to understand. Also, as part of delivering our training masterclasses, we found that practitioners were forgetting how this fitted within the broader framework for disclosure.

So, we’ve recently put together a simple guide on filtering. This is available as a downloadable A4 document (click the image below).

We hope you find it helpful. Let us know what you think by using our feedback form.

New website to be launched later this week

We’re delighted to announce that we’ll be launching a new core Unlock website later this week. As part of this development, we’ve had to take our old website down while we transfer the sites over, which means that neither our main website or our online forum will be available for the next couple of days.

In the meantime, our other websites (Information Hub, Disclosure Calculator and Online Magazine) will continue to run as normal, and these will be unaffected by the launch of the new site.

From later this week, our new core website will be available at unlock.devchd.com and will form part of our set of websites which includes:

unlock.devchd.com (available later this week) – Our main website, explaining more about us as a charity, the services that we provide, and our current areas of focus
unlock.devchd.com/information-and-advice/ – We maintain this information hub as the country’s most comprehensive source of online self-help information on a wide range of issues that criminal convictions can affect.
forum.unlock.org.uk (available again later this week) – An online peer-to-peer forum enabling people with convictions to support one another
www.disclosurecalculator.org.uk – A tool that enables you to work out when your convictions become spent under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974
unlock.devchd.com/community – An online magazine for and by people with convictions

Once it’s launched, we’d be delighted to hear your views on what you think to our new site!

An update on today’s historic changes to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974

Today is an historic day for Unlock. We’ve campaigned for many years to see changes to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act. It’s the first time in nearly 40 years since the legislation has been reformed in this way. It’s been quite a wait since the law received Royal Assent in 2012, but we’re delighted that we’ve finally got there.

Since we got notice of the implementation date, we’ve been working hard behind the scenes to make sure that we do all that we can to prepare for the changes.

We are also firmly of the belief that the changes don’t go far enough, and we’ve been doing a lot of work to try and make this clear.

The reason for this message is to set out the various things we’ve been working on. An ongoing update on the changes, in terms of what’s happening, is available at unlock.devchd.com/information-and-advice//changestotheroa/.

Updating our guidance

We’ve produced detailed guidance on the law as it now stands. This is quite lengthy, and focuses on some of the more technical aspects of the changes. We will be regularly reviewing and updating this as and when appropriate.

Producing practical materials

We’ve also produced practical materials that help to explain the changes to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act which came into force on the 10^th March 2014. These resources will help you to understand whether convictions are now regarded as ‘spent’ under the reforms. They include:

An ‘Is it spent?’ poster
A brief guide

These are available to view online on our information hub, and you can download copies free of charge from the downloads section of our information hub.

Updating our Disclosure Calculator

We have updated our online tool, www.disclosurecalculator.org.uk, which helps people to work out whether their convictions are spent under the Act.

We’re still working on improving it further, so that it works better under the new law. For example, at the moment, it can only calculator prison sentences using months (not days or weeks) but we hope to rectify this soon. More details of some of the outstanding technical queries are explained below.

Raising awareness

We have been doing our best to try and make people aware of these changes, both in terms of how people will benefit and how the changes could (and should) got further.

Late last week, we issued a press release, and we’re keen to take part in any opportunities that are available where we can spread the word about these changes so that people understand their legal rights.

We’ve written articles for Criminal Law & Justice Weekly and Open Democracy. We’ve also written a blog for our online magazine, theRecord, asking whether the changes are enough.

For prisons in particular, we’ve recorded a piece for National Prison Radio, which will go out in the Prime Time slot. We’ve also submitted something for the next issue of Inside Time.

More broadly, we’re sending out our materials to prisons, probation areas, job centres, employment support programmes and voluntary agencies. You can download copies free of charge from the downloads section of our information hub, where you can also find out how to get hold of hard-copies.

If you know of people and organisations that might value this information, please forward them a link to this update.

Supporting practitioners and organisations – Running ‘Masterclasses’

To help share our knowledge and understanding of these changes, we’re running various masterclasses for practitioners and organisations. The one we’re holding in March is now sold out, and we’ve only got a few places left on our one on the 7^th May, so book your place before you miss out. More details can be found here.

If you’re part of a project or service that has a number of people providing advice and support to people who have convictions, you might want to organise an ‘in-house’ masterclass, which can be for up to 10 individuals and works out cheaper per person that the bookable sessions. We’ve already got a number of these arranged for the coming months. More details can be found here.

Information session

We were delighted to run an information session in Maidstone last week, where we had various people turn up who, as a result of these changes, have found that their convictions will become spent much earlier. Quite a few found that their convictions become spent on the 10^th March itself.

Technical queries

We are keeping a track of the technical elements to the Act that we are awaiting clarification from the Ministry of Justice on. This is a useful reference when reading our guidance or using our Disclosure Calculator. We will be adding to this based on the queries that we receive, and providing updates as and when we have them available.

Working with others

Business in the Community

We’ve worked with Business in the Community, who has produced a Guide and Top Tips for telling an employer about your criminal record

This guidance is for people with criminal convictions and their advisers. If you (or the person you support) want to get back to work but are worried about disclosing a criminal conviction, this accessible guidance helps you to:

Understand your criminal record
Check when you need to tell an employer about your criminal conviction(s)
Decide how you will tell an employer about your conviction(s)

Download the resources from the Business in the Community website (link with be live at some point on Monday 10^th).

Ministry of Justice

We have been working closely with the Ministry of Justice on their guidance on the changes to the ROA. Although it’s not written in the style that we would choose, we provided comments on earlier draft versions to make sure that it was as clear as possible, and will continue to raise queries on an ongoing basis in the hope that they will clarify their guidance further (see outstanding technical queries below).

Sexual offences and the changes to the ROA

Since we got the news about the changes to the ROA coming in on the 10th March 2014, our helpline has had lots of people contacting us wanting to be sure about how it effects them.

One of the common mistakes we’re seeing is that people with convictions for sexual offences think that this alters the time they are subject to the notification requirements.

Unfortunately, the Government made it clear when passing these changes that they didn’t have any plans to alter the notification periods under the Sexual Offences Act 2003.

This means that it’s perfectly possible for you to have your conviction regarded as ‘spent’ under the ROA changes, but you still be subject to the notification requirements.

We’ve added some information to our page on sexual offences that hopefully helps to clarify this.

Finally, after 40 years, the laws on disclosing criminal records are changing for the better on the 10th March 2014

We’re delighted that, having campaigned for many years, the 10^th March 2014 will finally see reforms to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 come into force. This means that many people will find that their conviction becomes ‘spent’ a lot sooner than it did previously. It only applies in England and Wales, but the changes are ‘retrospective’, which means it applies to people convicted before the March changes.

So, if you were sentenced in June 2013 to 1 year in prison, this would previously have taken 10 years to become ‘spent’. Under the changes, this will reduce to 4 years from the end of the full sentence (so June 2018). We continue to campaign for a system for people sentenced to over 4 years, but for many people it’s much better than what it was.

In practical terms, a ‘basic disclosure’ (which only reveals unspent convictions) will be available from Disclosure Scotland from the 10th March, and this will reflect the changes to the law in England and Wales. If your convictions are now spent, this should come back blank.

Sentences with a buffer period (sentence length includes time spent on licence)

Sentence		Time it takes to become spent
Sentence		Adult (18+) at conviction/disposal	Young person (U18) at conviction/disposal
Prison (including suspended prison sentences)	Over 4 years or a public protection sentence	Never spent	Never spent
	More than 30 months and less than (or equal to) 4 years	Sentence + 7 years	Sentence + 3 ½ years
	More than 6 months and less than (or equal to) 30 months	Sentence + 4 years	Sentence + 2 years
	Less than (or equal to) 6 months	Sentence + 2 years	Sentence + 18 months
Community Order / Youth Rehabilitation Order		Length of the order + 1 year	Length of the order + 6 months

What happens once it’s spent? Basically, it means you don’t have to disclose for most jobs, and insurance, and won’t be disclosed on a basic check. It doesn’t get deleted, and for jobs that involve standard or enhanced criminal record checks, it will continue to get disclosed in most cases.

We’re publishing a simple guide on the changes (once it’s ready, we can provide individual copies on request, and it’ll be available to download from our website). In the meantime, we have a brief guide on the changes.

We also know that staff and practitioners that provide employment support and careers advice will want to know more detail about the changes, so we’re holding ‘masterclasses’ on the changes. Details of these can be found here, or you contact us for further information.

There will be more information available in the coming weeks – we’ve set up a dedicated page on our Hub where we’ll bring together all of the latest developments.

Updates to DBS filtering process

December has seen a couple of updates from the Disclosure & Barring Service regarding the filtering process.

Nothing has substantially changed – it’s simply that the DBS are trying to improve the way that they’re explaining how the filtering process works.

So what has changed?

Firstly, the DBS has updated their list of offences that will never be filtered. This increases the list of offences to over 1,000, as well as those offences such as attempting or conspiring to commit the offences listed). This update isn’t the result of a change in the law – it comes from the Home Office, who are trying to produce a list they still haven’t produced a list of offences that would be eligible for filtering so long as they meet the other criteria (which we’ve suggested would be useful).

Secondly, the DBS has updated their filtering guidance. Helpfully, they’ve given some advice to employers on how they should change their application forms to ask a more accurate question which takes into account filtering.

Although we’re not the publishers of these two pieces of information, we always appreciate feedback on what you think about them, and particularly in raising any issues that you find, so that we can raise them with the Home Office and DBS. Please get in touch.

Update to list of motor insurers

We’ve made some minor updates to the list of motor insurers.

In particular, we’ve added the details of More Than. As well as asking about motor convictions, they only ask about convictions relating to fraud or dishonesty. They don’t seem to give a definition to these two phrases, so if in doubt, you should check with them first, but those convictions which are obviously not in those categories do not need to be disclosed (as well as not needing to disclose anything that is spent).

Also, we’ve left the details of the Co-op on the list, because their online system doesn’t ask about non-motoring convictions. However, we’ve had reports from individuals saying that they’ve been asked by the Co-op when they’ve spoken to them over the phone. If this has been your experience, please let us know.

Getting permission to travel abroad while on licence

It can be very difficult, while on licence, to get permission to travel abroad. It very much depends on the reasons why you need to travel, and how willing your Probation Area is to grant you permission.

Generally, we find that people get permission refused, so we were pleased when, a couple of weeks ago, we received a report from somebody who was granted permission, so we want to share this:

“My probation trust has just granted me permission to travel for business purposes. My application was for travel to The Netherlands, returning the same day (business meeting). My index offence is a s.20 wounding and I still have about 4 months of licence. I applied about 3 weeks ago and it took this long to get a decision (it went all the way up to the regional direction) and it took a bit of chasing from my end”

For more information, visit the Travelling abroad while on licence page.