So, sex offenders are to be required to supply their email addresses and chatroom names now when signing the register. Let’s think about this for a moment…

Obviously this is a PR stunt from the Home Office, trying to look like they are doing something to curb the crisis that is currently engulfing their department, but it also goes to show how out of touch the Home Office really is. If they think that having paedophiles, rapists and the like let them know what their email address is will stamp out these crimes, they are living in a dream world.
Addresses and aliases can be changed in a matter minutes, everybody knows this, how come Mr Reid and his department clearly do not?

Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, Lycos Mail, the list goes on. Free e-mail is everywhere and who says that you have to register with your real details? And if they are setting up email accounts with which to commit crimes, do you think they are going to be afraid of breaking law one more time and not informing the authorities of this additional or change of address? I certainly do not think so.

Why ask for potentially false or easily changable information? Yes, it’s a bit of a minefield, as anything with the internet involved is very easily manipulated, but, the Police could seek to identify the sex offenders’ ISP and make it a requirement that if or when they change providers that the company has to inform the Police, not leaving it up to the convict themselves.
With the information that could be obtained from their ISP, monitoring would be far more relevant as records of websites visited can be obtained. Even if the person used an anonymous proxy to do his web-surfing, records from the ISP would be able to show this, and surely this should is where a red-flag pops up and the person is questioned as to why they are using this method to gain access to websites.

Peering into citizens internet usage habits has been written into law for some time now, the Goverment has the authority to do this, so why not use it? If it can be used for terror suspects then why not convicted paedophiles?
Hell, we’ve already given the Yank’s the authority to go through the email accounts of British citizens who wish to travel to the USA, why can the fuzz not be seen to be actively doing this domestically?

Please, don’t patronise us Mr Reid.

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