Advances in computer technology have allowed tremendous strides to be made in the collection and storage of information. However, the experience of Bradford student Jennifer Stead provides an alarming example of its fallibility.

It is very worrying that Jennifer should have learned, after a routine security check by her employers, that she has had a string of drugs and fraud offences wrongly recorded against her name on the Criminal Records Bureau register.

If the Home Office-run organisation can have got that wrong, how many other people might have been mistakenly linked to offences with which they have no connection? And perhaps of even greater concern, how many people who should be on the register are able to walk into jobs without their employers being aware of their backgrounds because their crimes have been wrongly attributed to someone else?

The Criminal Records Bureau needs to tighten up its procedures to eliminate the possibility of error and also to protect its records from the sort of "identity theft" which is becoming increasingly common as criminals manipulate com-puter technology to their advantage.

Jennifer's case perhaps strengthens the argument for a national identity card containing information which proves beyond doubt that individuals are who they say they are. Some people have strong reservations about ID cards. However, there is considerable truth in the clich that if you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear.

And as Jennifer and her family have discovered to their emotional cost, it can be rather distressing to have done nothing wrong but to have been misrepresented.