The data don’t add up
At the centre of today’s testimony was a simple, disquieting question: could the notes that formed the basis of allegations against Sandie Peggie have ever existed as described? The tribunal heard from two digital forensic experts – Peter Donaldson and Jim Borwick – who, despite differing styles, reached a chilling consensus: the data doesn’t add up.
Peter Donaldson was the first to fold. Pressed on the chronological ordering of Google Keep notes – particularly a now-infamous “weird incident” entry from August – he conceded he could not confirm that the note appeared in the position it did by creation date. Screenshots showed one thing; Google metadata suggested another. Donaldson couldn’t verify which notes were original or which were later interpolations. “Can’t recall.” “Can’t remember.” His evidence was a fog of qualification.
Then came Jim Borwick. He brought something rarer: certainty.
Borwick had recreated scenarios using Google Keep, setting his phone to airplane mode, delaying syncs, even manipulating device clocks. None produced what he and Donaldson observed in the NHS Fife screenshots: notes showing edit dates preceding creation timestamps. As Borwick told the tribunal, that outcome was “not possible.” Google’s servers simply don’t work that way. In forensic terms, it would be like printing a page before it was written.
Worse still, Borwick explained the one remaining scenario: deliberate manipulation. The screenshots may have been superimposed – faked, in effect – to suggest an evidentiary timeline that never existed. This isn’t conspiracy theory. It’s the only remaining technical explanation when every natural mechanism has been exhausted.
He showed how one note had supposedly been edited on 21 August but carried a creation date of 26 October. No version history existed to support the earlier event. Another note referenced “aluminium mesh from Halfords” – a mundane entry, yes, but hardly one requiring deception. Unless, as Borwick dryly noted, “that’s a hobby [Upton] keeps secret.” The tribunal laughed; the implications were deadly serious.
If these notes were not contemporaneous – and every sign suggests they were not – then they are not evidence of Peggie’s behaviour in real time. They are reconstructions, post hoc justifications dressed in digital timestamp. More damningly, the edit histories were changed after Peggie had already raised her objections. This is not contemporaneity. It is narrative.
Aka storytelling aka lies.
But they identify as contemporaneous. Isn’t that all that matters?
Even if the notes confirming Peggie’s behavior were legitimate, so what? Her behavior was leaving a changing room when a man came in. Confirming her behavior isn’t the big issue; whether we must require women to change in a room with men, even when menstruating, is the issue. Punishing her simply for taking care of her welfare when her employer wouldn’t, and for knowing the difference between a man and a woman (something every nurse should know, and every doctor, suggesting Peggie is more competent than Upton).
By the way, thank you for using data right in the title; I notice in the article, they use ‘doesn’t’. That has irked me a long time.
Same. See also: criteria.
@iknklast #2
Yes, thanks.
Pedants. In modern usage, data is considered an uncountable noun, meaning it has no plural and is treated as singular. It’s in the same class of nouns as water, information, equipment, furniture, and so on. Yes, I know the singular form of data is datum, and that in the good old days one used to be able to count them. But now that we store our data in terabytes spread all over the internet, it’s time to face reality and move on.
Pedants? You say that like it’s a bad thing!
“They”, “…like they are a bad thing!”, hand in your League of Pedants card:)
I realize we are supposed to bow to the modern usage, spurred on by the internet. Sorry. It’s a Latin word, it is plural, and it is heavily used in science. As a scientist, I intend to use it right.
But if it’s uncountable, how can it be expected to add up?
Sorry, it seems that those of us here on this esteemed site who studied Latin and/or etymology and/or science, outnumber the ignorant who would impoverish the language.
Well, the data in this case don’t seem to add up, according to the experts, so I suppose we can regard data in cases such as these as being ‘uncountable’, formless, fluid, ever-changing, untrustworthy and possibly dangerous, just like water… Perhaps we should keep the singular form of the verb for this type of data, and the plural form for genuine data.
‘…like it’s a bad thing [to be pedants]’. Can I have my card back, please?
I think that bowing to the modern usage is double plus ungood.
The best kind of correct is technically correct.
The timestamps don’t add up.
It seems to me that the lawyers for NHS Fife deliberately and knowingly introduced a fake document into a court case. Isn’t that a serious offence punishable by law? Disbarring should be the least of the penalties, but I’d prefer to see a heavy fine and maybe imprisonment. Is anyone proposing a criminal case?