The Association of Chief Police Officers in the UK have accused the Information Commissioner of putting children at risk for ordering the "destruction of valuable criminal intelligence."

"In one case, in July 2003, the commissioner demanded that South Yorkshire police delete from a woman's record a juvenile conviction for actual bodily harm dating from 1979...

In September 2003 a similar request was made of West Yorkshire police over a man who wanted juvenile convictions that carried a three-month custodial sentence to be "weeded out" of his record.

In a case with echoes of Huntley, the commissioner asked an unnamed police force to delete intelligence relating to allegations that a man sexually assaulted young males in 1991 and 1998."

The notion that a juvenille conviction from 1979 (25 years ago) should be held against someone is a bit excessive. What about the juvenille conviction leading to a custodial sentence or someone with serious allegations stemming from 1998? It's difficult to say without more specifics of the individual cases. What's certain is that the police have a very difficult job but they do need to recognise that the Information Commissioner does too. Very often an organisation's interpretation of the Data Protection Act bears little relationship to the actual requirements of the act. There is a judgement call to be made on the merits of individual cases and the perception on where the dividing line should fall will vary depending on the values and objectives of the institution or the indivual. ACPO and the Information Commissioner, if the story is to be believed, have different perspectives on the boundaries.