OPINION: While many would be shocked to hear the Sensible Sentencing Trust (SST) had the wrong man's picture labelled as a paedophile for two years, I wasn't.
Because the hardline law-and-order group once did something very similar to me.
In case you missed the latest story, the Sensible Sentencing Trust had a page on its offender database about an actual paedophile, but the picture was of a different man. They had the same first and last name, but were different people.
It took the SST two years to rectify the error, during which time the man in the photo says he lost business.
"Sound familiar?" my wife said, sending me a link to the Privacy Commissioner's report.
You see, way back in 2007 I was doing a paper on blogging as a part of my journalism studies at AUT. I wanted to see if my latest piece had been published online, so for probably the first time I googled myself.
The top hit was the SST website, saying I was a rapist. Not a good look for someone who, just a few weeks later, would be hitting the pavement in search of work in the nascent digital news industry.
"Your website currently lists my name as belonging to someone apparently convicted of rape," my younger self wrote in an email to the SST.
"A Google search for my name is currently bringing up your website as the number one hit - as a graduate currently looking for work in the media industry, this could potentially prove a rather problematic obstacle.
"I appreciate what your organisation is trying to do, but my name isn't exactly common and I'm afraid of what may happen if confusion results. Please, take this entry down as soon as you can."
An hour-and-a-half later, I was told no.
"The reason we have these guys on our website is that it is priority we have society protected from predatory offenders like this," the SST wrote back. "We have added this person on our online database because he is a rapist. We expose repeat offenders for what they are, and make no apologies for it."
I was horrified. How was I going to get a job with Google calling me a rapist? And I was wrong about my name being uncommon - I came across a South Island high school cricketer who was earning headlines in his local newspaper for hitting centuries. Why couldn't he be at the top of Google, I angrily wondered to myself.
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Later the next day, SST founder Garth McVicar himself stepped in, telling his web people he wanted it treated with urgency. Eventually a disclaimer was added, noting there were other people with the same name in New Zealand who weren't rapists, and the page soon fell down the Google rankings.
But that wasn't the end of it. Eighteen months later I was back on the front page, still being called a rapist. Turned out the SST forgot to update some file in the offender database - the same one they've now taken down in the wake of their incrimination of the innocent in paedophilia.
The SST says it has no idea who uploaded the photo of the innocent man to the page about the paedophile, and has no way of finding out. As the Privacy Commissioner pointed out, that's not good enough.
I no longer appreciate what the SST is trying to do. Their views on crime and punishment are old-fashioned and conflict with what all the research says we should be doing. Thankfully Justice Minister Andrew Little agrees, and I had to laugh when he called McVicar "loopy" earlier this year.
And though 'my' entry on their offender database thankfully appears to have vanished from the internet, not everyone - innocent or guilty - will be so lucky.
Dan Satherley is a Newshub senior digital reporter and not a rapist.
