Thanks for the additional background. As an aside, the US also is a common law jurisdiction except in areas where legal systems don’t trace back to the British Empire.
However, data registration can be accessed where no question exists that something wrong happened. “Alleged” in those cases only comes into play when a registrant winds up accused. That’s minor but it goes to my point that, at least in the US, the use
of the term began as one thing and then morphed into something else that doesn’t comport with the original purpose and as a result often does not make sense. I’m not necessarily saying that’s the case here. I’m thinking more of “the alleged murderer was sentenced
to life in prison” situation.
Hi Don,
The use of 'alleged' is common, not to say required in Ireland and, I believe the UK. I expect it's used in most or all common law jurisdictions to communicate the fact that the issuance of a procedure is not itself an indictment, and that even-handedness is
an essential given that the 'alleged x, y or z' may well in fact be innocent and the role of the process in hand is precisely to determine whether or not this is the case.
In this context, I think it's critical that our discussions are fully cognizant of the fact that accessing whois as a corrective for misdeeds is a process designed in fact for *alleged* misdeeds. It is all too easy to slip into a law enforcement frame of mind
where the 'alleged perpetrator' is simply thought of as a perpetrator, and not afforded the presumption of innocence, even in simple procedural or administrative matters such as personal data access.
While designing a procedure like this one, we need to be extremely careful not to slip into lazy assumptions of guilt, just because of the predominance of voices that naturally assume it.
Maria