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Enhanced Disclosure, and the Stainless Steel Rat.
Here in the UK we have a thing called a CRB (Criminal Record Background) check, and what this means is that any potential employer of mine can pay a small fee and in return be presented with my entire criminal record.
When I say "entire" I mean it, riding around on a motorcycle in the seventies with no helmet, getting stopped and fined, refusing to pay the fines and being imprisoned for refusing to pay the fines will be in there as "imprisoned, 1978, non payment of fines"
But we also have a thing called Enhanced CRB, and this does not merely limit itself to actual convictions, oh no...
Back when I was released from prison there was a lot of talk about the rights of ex-cons, and how people like me who had served less than six months at a stretch would find that our records were wiped clean after a few years of being trouble (with the police) free.
The idea (erasing records) has some merit, while there are crimes that should not be forgotten, fairly trivial victimless stuff that you did when you were a teenager really doesn't have a lot of relevance 30 crime free years later.
However in the real world even back then it was known that anything that went into the Police national computer stayed there, nothing ever got deleted, and it was always accessible one way or another through channels, legal or otherwise, to anyone (such as a potential employer) with an interest.
My single drugs conviction, a 40 quid fine in 1979 for posession of (from memory) three ready rolled joints is a case in point, I never even bothered applying for a USA visa, and don't forget this is all from the days when "computer" = "mainframe"
So now we have a thing called the Enhanced CRB, and it is mandatory for anyone doing anything, paid or voluntary, that in any way has anything whatsoever to do with children.
That's the minimum, any employer who feels like it can ask for an Enhanced CRB instead of a CRB, and increasing numbers are.
The cool thing about the Enhanced CRB is that it does not just contain convictions, it also contains suspicions (eg stuff you were at one time charged with, but never convicted of) and as if that were not enough it also contains allegations... and "allegations" includes anonymous telephone calls to the Police that you have, for just one example, being taking an unhealthy interest in the kids in the park.
In 2005 I got involved in an on-line flame with three late middle aged losers, yeah, I shoulda known better, blah blah, but within a matter of days all three were publishing my name and claiming that I was a known paedophile. Yup, took em to court and blah blah and I suppose again I shoulda known better, however, I will now fail, and fail miserably, an Enhanced CRB.
All a potential employer will know is my name, date of birth, marital status and all the other stuff on my CV, oh, and the fact that several allegations have been made that I am a paedophile.
At a stroke, any job that is even remotely related to children (this includes their data) is out, it is illegal for the employer not to perform an Enhanced CRB, and effectively (from the liability perspective) illegal to employ anyone who fails the Enhanced CRB.
I'll leave you for a moment to consider what sorts of jobs have no possible connection to children, not a street sweeper, kids walk down the street, not a toilet cleaner in a stuffed toy factory, kids buy stuffed toys, not a plumber, kids live in houses, not a driver, kids live at addresses...
However, the fact is that the job could be toilet cleaning on the Mars terraforming factory, several million miles away from the nearest kid, and the reality is that every potential employer on the planet is simply going to avoid ALL risk and discard every applicant who fails an Enhanced CRB, after all, an applicant who passes an Enhanced CRB is less risky... whether they are qualified and suitable for the job in questions becomes secondary, a distant secondary.
So here we are, 30 years ago I was a teenage tearaway who smoked dope, and a few years ago a couple of losers in an online flame war decided to "Godwin" me, it's like Jekyll and Hyde, if you knock on my door now and come in for a coffee and a chinwag you see Dr Jekyll, a nice normal human being, though I say so myself there is no shortage of people who like me in the real world, sure, they will all say something qualifying about that, I'm not a saint, but over all there is like, and there is trust.
And yet, despite the fact that there isn't a Mr Hyde lurking behind the bench, the Enhanced CRB says there MIGHT be, and that's you screwed.
The ironic thing is the Enhanced CRB is so damaging because deep down we all know it could be true.
Even those fortunate enough never to have seen first hand the violence that man can do to man are instinctively aware of it, potentially at least. Put a man (or mother, come to that) in a place where there are a totally different set of rules, or more likely no rules except dead men tell no tales, and the Mr Hyde in everyone comes to the fore.
It is man's capacity for violence that lends credence and credibility to the Enhanced CRB.
But the fact is that my potential capacity to become a man who does evil things is a bit like my potential capacity to become a man who does great things, it is all potential, and lacking an overwhelming outside influence such as a war or natural disaster, the only thing driving that potential is my own will.
And the fact is that for most human beings they aren't driven that far by willpower, I am a fairly ordinary man, not because I lack the potential to be either evil or great, but because I lack the drive to become either. Much like the rest of you. Most of the time, if left to our own devices, we are happiest just being ourselves, neither notably good nor notably evil, but rather lots of slightly good and slightly bad data points clustering around the median.
But there is no electronic record saying that in 1980 someone thought that I could do great things one day, there is no electronic record of the kids lives who I have touched (and though I say so myself if I am ever going to heaven it will be on their testimony) and tried to teach and help and so on, there is no electronic record of the many very real times where temptation was right there in front of me for the taking, and I chickened out, or whatever other euphemism you like for walking away from it, doing the "right" thing.
But there is an electronic record of what I used to be, back when I was a teenager, and there is an electronic record of what other people think I might have been, or maybe simply an electronic record of their malice.
Bonking the local Police Sergeant's daughter when you're young seems like fun, and the (by todays standards) resultant police harassment just adds to the spice, thirty years later that harassment and those allegations still stick on your record.
Flaming some luser on usenet can seem like fun, but years later the allegations they made in return are still stuck to your record.
One thing is for certain in 2008, computer databases aren't going away, and in fact all the signs are that the changes I have seen in the last 30 years from a police mainframe to world + dog each has their own database with my name in it is set to expand in the same vein in the next 30 years.
In 2038 your database could be marking you out as a less than perfect individual because in 2010 you did not elect to BOGOF at Tesco and put the purchase of your ClubCard points, or maybe you wrote something once, somewhere on the internet, that when taken out of context 30 years later you maybe regret, or you would if you remembered writing it.
Perhaps luckily for me I am a bit of a cavalier, well if that's what the Enhanced CRB says about me and you trust that more than your own judgement and doing your own legwork and actually taking up the personal and professional reference you asked for, well maybe I don't want to work for an asshole like you anyway.
Perhaps luckily for me I am the sort who can grin and raise my middle finger and ask them "How they are going to put that in their fuckin databases?"
Perhaps luckily for me a considerable fraction of my time on this planet is already done, and I spent it living in preference to worrying.
Perhaps I am one of a dying breed, like the dinosaurs, my boy is less than two years old but already he is in several interconnected databases, and the flesh is as nothing to the veritas of those interconnected databases, his only hope is to become a Stainless Steel Rat.