Re: Quick question about police/drugs

On Sun, 12 Mar 2006 22:10:38 +1300, Peter <peterwn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

TimB wrote:


I've always thought that, depending on the nature of the business, the
best response would possibly be along the lines of "I'd like to
cooperate, but my customer's have an expectation of privacy, and I need
to be seen to be protecting that. Get a court order and I'll be happy
to help"

He is in a partnership where his partner's share of the partnership asset is
at risk and someone is going to value the partnership to work out how much
to excise if it comes to that. The best form of damage control in such
circumstances would be to cooperate fully with the investigators - if you
are bloody minded by insisting they get a warrant, they can be bloody
minded from their end - it is only human nature. No need to worry about
your customers' privacy if the business transactions are straight and
honest - they will be too busy to nosey parker into your customers' affairs
without cause and in any case the investigators face penalties for
breaching confidences.

That is complete nonsense. It is all too easy for some very important
commercial information to come the way of Mr Plod and he is *not* an
expert in the subject's line of business, nor in commercial security.
This is nothing to do with corrupt policemen. It is quite possible
that customer details could reach ordinary coppers or even the
cleaning lady by accident or through carelessness. There are *severe*
civil penalties for breaches of confidentiality and, as for
"investigators facing penalties", it's unlikely that any individual
policeman will have the resources to recompense a multi-million pound
company for loss of commercial secrets to the opposition. And I can't
imagine the force putting their hand up and paying out generously
without a fight. Neither is one likely to recover from the loss of
customer good will. The old adage "if you have nothing to hide you
have nothing to fear" is as wrong over matters of business as it is
over putting surveillance cameras into lavatories.
.

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