27 Part 1 When deciding on the relevance of information, those involved in the evaluation process will have to be conscious of the following human rights standards: • Prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; • Prohibition of discrimination; • Respect for private and family life; • Freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief; • Freedom of expression; and • Freedom of association and the right of peaceful assembly.35 35 Except for rights such as the prohibition of torture and discrimination, the majority of human rights are not absolute, meaning they can be restricted under certain circumstances, based on law and international human rights standards.36 Any interference must also be justified, necessary and proportionate to the objectives it aims to achieve. The assessment of the information provided needs to be more than just a judgement of whether or not it is true; information also needs to be pertinent for policing purposes with regard to the suspected involvement of an individual in terrorist activity. Thus, it may be relevant that someone has joined a violent extremist group if that group is reasonably believed to be involved in terrorist acts. In such case, breaching the subject’s privacy by recording the fact in a police database and sharing it with other law enforcement personnel who need to know might be necessary and proportionate. If the group is not believed to be involved in terrorism, then the mere fact of the subject becoming a member is unlikely to be relevant. Getting the balance right between what is relevant and what is irrelevant is not always easy. Something that appears at first sight to be irrelevant may later turn out to be relevant, and vice versa. Maintaining details about a person in a police database simply because of their sexual orientation or belonging to a particular 35 36 OSCE commitments and international standards, op. cit., notes 21, 22, 25, 26, 27, and 28. See the different types of rights: non-absolute rights are referred to as ‘limited’ or ‘qualified’ rights, in Countering Terrorism, Protecting Human Rights: A Manual, op. cit., note 19, p. 67 and the five-stages test to lawfully interfere with non-absolute rights, pp. 68–72.