U.K. Police Have a Message for Crime Victims: Hand over Your Private Data
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
> “We understand that how personal data is used can be a source of anxiety,” he said. “We would never want victims to feel that they can’t report crimes because of ‘intrusion’ in their data.”
> “That’s why a new national form has been introduced,” replacing policies that varied from place to place, “to help police seek informed consent proportionately and consistently.”
I’m sorry for not having something smarter to say, but what the actual fuck? That sounds like what a tech company would say to try to justify their new data policy. That’s terrible coming from an institution that is supposed to protect people under its jurisdiction.
> We don't want you to be concerned
> Now here's this new TOS which is what you're concerned about, but it is new, and shiny.
Nah, they are there to protect those in power. Been that way for a while in case you didn't notice.
How? Which political party or independents promote a policy to reduce police powers?
And even if there were, or are, any politicians with such a policy we ought to be more suspicious of them!
It's not "reducing police power", it's "even better training, tools and techniques for our hard-working police officers".
Policing is mostly local, so I think this is an area where there's a real chance to make things better. National politics are hopelessly tribal in the US, but city/county level politics are much less so. Go to city council meetings. Pay attention, and complain if they try to buy leftover military hardware like a BearCat[1]. Vote for and talk to your councillors. Organize a petition to de-militarize your local police force.
Aren't you assuming that people want something better? I don't know if that is true. Many people refuse to believe cops can be bad (due to ignorance or whatever other reasons)
This is one reason why, at least in the US, you should never talk to the police if you're suspected of a crime -- even if you're innocent and it seems that your innocence will be blindingly obvious to them[0]. Anything you say can and will be used against you, and by the rules of evidence, nothing you say to the police can be used for you in court. (Tell them you have a lawyer friend who will never let you live it down if you say anything without speaking to your attorney first.)
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE
(IANAL)
Don't do this unless you really have a lawyer friend. Lying to the police, even when you haven't committed a crime otherwise, can be prosecuted as obstruction.
It's better to simply say that you will not answer questions without an attorney present, then just stop talking.
I'm not a lawyer either, but I worked alongside law enforcement for most of my adult life.
In England we don't have a national police force; we have lots of local forces. There's wide variation in how they respond to crime. We noticed this variation was causing injustice: women (and men) who were raped were not having their crimes robustly investigated; men who were accused of rape were not having their defence robustly investigated.
The new guidance is telling police precisely what they can (and thus can't) ask for, and when (and thus when not) they can ask for it.
Fishing expeditions are not allowed.
I'm a very data security conscious person. If something bad happened to me the last thing I'd want is for the police to say that they can't continue to work on my case unless I grant them access to my device(s) and then trust them to not be (deliberately or not) "incompetent" with what they're doing. If anything this should be part of a policy in which victims elect to volunteer information when asked if there's anything that could help the case. I can actually easily imagine a case in which I've been sexually assaulted (and this has happened to me) and I would not go to the police if they had a policy like this.
If the police are searching on my phone, what if I have something illegal I don't want them to see? Something they might think is 'concerning' that they can write down and decide to pursue later? What if I'm a sex worker and they can find out through looking at my phone, and even gather proof that fact? And before we say that we can trust them to be competent, what about the other story here?[0] What about the myriad of horrible laws that are passed in England and Wales which restrain even private possession of comics?
My understanding is that the police in the UK have always been required to pursue reasonable lines of enquiry, including those that might contradict the complainant's evidence. That means when investigating a crime they must consider the possibility that the victim is not telling the whole story (where it is reasonable to do so, eg. there is no way to corroborate the victim's account).
The new guidelines (which, unfortunately, I can't find the full text of) apparently tell the police when they should exercise the power they have always had: to tell victims "we don't have enough evidence to justify putting further effort into this investigation, unless you agree to hand over your phone to us, because that would increase our confidence that you are telling us the truth."
Police have competing priorities and it is inevitable that some crimes go unpunished because the witnesses are not believed by police, or refuse to voluntarily provide information which could affect their credibility. I am sure I would agree with the police doing this in some extreme cases, but as another data security conscious person, it's unlikely I would fully agree with the police interpretation of "necessary and appropriate." [1]
[1]: https://twitter.com/PoliceChiefs/status/1122757012859904002
That's exactly what a criminal investigation is. They keep fishing until they find probative evidence. The creative ways police investigate certain unsolved crimes puts most fishing expeditions to shame.
Unless of course you aren't interested in the truth but want to railroad people accused of very specific crimes for political reasons...
> “If information is identified from your device that suggests the commission of a separate criminal offense, other than the offense(s) under investigation, the relevant data may be retained and investigated by the police,” according to written statement to victims and witnesses that will accompany the consent form.
> Anything the police find, it says, will be handed over to prosecutors. And in some cases, devices might not be given back to their owners for weeks or even months.
That sounds a lot like "fishing expeditions".
But if my car had been stolen, or my house burglarized, there would have been no such constraint. Unless it was that someone had stolen my drugs, anyway.
Now, though, with so much personal data on devices, any interaction with police entails some risk of disclosure. But I guess that's part of what "outlaw" means. In breaking some laws, you give up protection by others. It's just that we used to have enough privacy to finesse it more.
Years ago you could be speeding in one county, cross the county line (e.g. from Devon to Cornwall) and they wouldn't be able to catch you. The cop would have to back off at the 'border'. Or you could get a first offence caution, e.g. for drugs or shop-lifting in one county, then do the same offence in a different county and get another caution rather than be prosecuted properly.
Those days were over a long time ago, when computers arrived those gaps in the system went.
More recently the local stations have been closed with these local districts getting merged. The nearest cells might be in the big town twenty miles away rather than the local police station down the road. That might only have admin staff.
Then the police are now expected to follow everything up themselves using some tablet computer things they have been given. In the olden days someone back at the station would do all the follow up work contacting the victims of crime etc. Nowadays the constable who happens to be on the scene has to follow the incident up through to the end with a tablet computer instead of a team effort.
The government have chosen to make many cuts to the police force which is a little bit silly. The police are important for staying in power and any government needs them on their side. Cutting their pensions, making them work a not so local 'local' area with 'them and us' merger problems and undermining their effectiveness is just plain silly. If there was some type of Brexit related rebellion in the country then the police are no longer 'bought' enough to be guaranteed to always be on the side of government. It has got to that stage of pissing them off.
Anyway, the police are sadly quite underfunded and, as a consequence, there is nothing to fear from this new 'let's read your phone' ruling. The police have enough problems of their own.
1: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/rape-trial-colla...
This seems to have the potential of severe abuse, if a rapist is aware of such matters they would feel protected to carry out their travesties.
What the actual f* indeed.
Sadly, that was a long time ago. Now they're a massively-under-resourced, under-manned "service" (they used to be the Police Force). From many UK citizens' experience, all we can hope for as victims of crime is to record the crime, get a crime number and wait for something to happen. Very sad, and increasingly dangerous...
I was attacked and injured a few years ago, in an area with really good CCTV. The police spent six weeks claiming to be "picking up the evidence soon", all the while I have the CCTV operator calling me every fortnight asking when the police are going to pick up the tape. They never did.
A few weeks later, the guy who attacked me turned up in the press. Arrested for robbing an old lady and leaving her in hospital.
Called the police back, "Oh. There's nothing we can do. It's your word against his, there's no evidence, and we've closed the case."
Called the CCTV operator. They still had the tape. "I can keep it for another week before I have to destroy it."
Called the police back, told them to go pick up the tape. "No. The case is closed."
All they had to do was tell a passing car to drop in with an evidence bag and even that was too much work for them.
And this was long before the police cuts. It's only got worse since.
So it's easy to see how this kind of policy can counterintuitively end up increasing crime by making it easier for someone who has committed a crime to get away with it.
I unfortunately know a woman who was raped, but did not report it because she was underage drinking at the time. She has spent decades now regretting that decision. The fear of reporting is real.
For example, should it be against the law to drink alcohol if you're underage? I'd say no. There should be no punishment for drinking alcohol underage.
Similarly, possession itself should never be against the law. It is a different matter if we are taking about toxins or biochemical weapons because we still need some kind of safe storage requirements but possession of photos and videos should never be against the law. Who came up with this?
The first season of black mirror had this as well (spoiler).
But I don't agree that we should somehow appreciate this practice because it can highlight other bad laws. Fishing expeditions function whether the laws are sensible or not. You can modify my above catfishing scenario for whatever happens to be illegal. Even if the images are fine, keep going with texts that show an intent to meet up. Even if no meet up occurred, it's still a big hassle. The setup is basically DIY entrapment for whatever crime you want to design.
The problem is not merely being caught up by other bad laws, but Cardinal Richelieu's old "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." The unfounded search is the problem, as it focuses police attention on the victim as a new potential criminal to investigate.
Indeed. And this new policy will help the police/government to bring down criminality figures. I would be surprised if that is not the actual intent. In a few years they will triumphantly announce that the UK police is doing so well, that it has become a much safer place to live. Welcome to politics.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/liam-allan-met-p...
where a rape trial collapsed after text messages between the alleged victim and alleged attacker were "discovered" late in the process.
So this is an instance of "we have to do something" where the suggestion swings too far the other way. I assume after some debate we will settle on a sensible compromise position.
Instead of forcing people to give their mobiles, why not use the "innocent until proven guilty" age-old adage?
They aren't forcing people to give up their mobiles, merely saying that if a victim chooses not to, they are denying the police useful evidence. In the absence of other evidence, there's a risk that prosecutions won't go ahead.
The reason this is an issue at all is the presumption of innocence. The accused is presumed innocent and without evidence (which may or may not be on the phone) there is nothing the police or the courts can do.
If I remember correctly, season 1, episode 3 "The Entire History of You" depicted a world where most people had eye and ear implants that recorded everything they saw and heard. When one of the characters who did not have the implant called the police to ask for help as she watched her boyfriend being beaten up, the cop requested to to be given access to her implant. When she said she did not have one, they simply hanged up on her.
And now, less than 8 years later, here we are.
The new law is aimed not for any crime victims, but specifically rape and serious sexual offence victims.
> "It comes after a number of rape and serious sexual assault cases collapsed when crucial evidence emerged."
I'd recommend reading this instead: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48086244
ii) it's not law, it's guidance
iii) it's not specifically rape and sexual offences, it's all crime when it's relevant.
Here's the CPS press release: https://www.cps.gov.uk/cps/news/handing-over-mobile-phone-da...
I agree the press coverage has been terrible.
This is an artefact of the adversarial model of justice. Someone is being paid to get mister rapist, mister burglar and miss stabbity off the hook and they can and will use anything that makes you look like a liar or unreliable. Regardless if you actually are.
If the UK switched to a continental style system of judge-led discovery, this kind of fishing for anything that looks bad might become less prevalent. But that isn't presently in the offing.
Two people can have different interpretations of events without one of them making maliciously false allegations. The complainant can have an honest, sincere, belief that they did not give consent.
And, for phone evidence, there are good reasons why a complainant may say one thing to police but something else to friends of the accused.
You don't even have to go that far - the allegation could be true, but newly uncovered evidence could cast sufficient doubt that the accused is not found guilty. E.g. an eyewitness correctly identifies an assailant, but it is later revealed she wasn't wearing her prescription glasses.
https://twitter.com/BarristerSecret/status/11228239278042275...
Police do have a duty to pursue all reasonable lines of inquiry. If it’s a rape allegation where the complainant had a previous relationship with the rapist, and the critical issue is the complainant’s credibility, would it ever be legally unreasonable for the police to ask for the victim to turn over their phone as the first step in the investigation? And if this occurs, couldn’t that have a chilling effect on crime reporting, even if the fruits of that search would not normally need to be disclosed to the accused (or would at least be ruled inadmissible at trial, after being disclosed to the accused)?
Nobody wants unfamiliar officers trawling through their phones, but the law didn’t have to change to make it far more likely that victims of crime would suffer invasions of privacy as a side effect of a lawful and proper criminal investigation. We just started carrying around huge amounts of evidence about our private lives, including evidence relevant to crimes we might want to report, 24/7. We need to talk about whether that societal fact has changed the balance to be struck between the rights of victims and defendants in the criminal justice system.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-engla...
Did he not make anyone aware of them or did they just ignore it?
Maybe you delete the nude photos (you are really not comfortable with other people getting to see your naked spouse), but police notice you deleted some photos. How do they not know those aren't evidence of your mugger? They tell you the case is invalid, since deleting photos seems suspicious.
Does not seem fair enough to me.
The incidence of false accusation of rape is fairly low - depending on the statistic you find and country, either less than or roughly at parity with accusation of other crimes - between 2 and 10 percent [1]. Remember that the reporting of rape or sexual assault is low, compared to other crimes - I personally know several women who regularly sport bruises from their abusive partner, but who refuse to turn them in (and I am in no position to turn them in - the choice is entirely up to the victim and will backfire in my losing any ability to help them in the future, if I do).
The cases of false rape accusations, however, tend to be highly visible, since they are often made by a desperate woman seeking to profit off a rich celebrity. Meanwhile, just like car accidents, the media tends to report only the most gruesome crashes/rapes, since this is an event that happens so often that reporting it every time is not newsworthy.
[1] https://www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/files/Publications_NSVRC...
https://twitter.com/BarristerSecret/status/11228241787200552...
"The prosecution is under a duty to pursue all reasonable lines of enquiry in an investigation, and to disclose to the defence any material it uncovers which may be reasonably capable of undermining the prosecution case or assisting the defence."
If you, as the victim, did not know the attacker and there was no reasonable reason to suspect you did know each other then your phone would not be requested into evidence.
You have to remember the vast majority of rapes are committed by parties who know each other previously, which is why it's so relevant to this specific crime.
If we use the same definition as for conviction, ie proven beyond reasonable doubt that a crime did not occur, you get similar single digit. In one case it is the court that define proven beyond reasonable doubt and in the other the police, but they more or less is the same single digit of the total number of reported cases. We can assume that the police definition is a bit less strict than the court, but how much is just speculation.
We could use the rate in which prosecutor deem a case likely to succeed and thus brings it to the court and compare that to the rate which police finds it proven beyond reasonable doubt that the crime did not occur, but we will still end up with a huge rate of false reports.
Which is why people tend to compare the total number of reported cases vs those that police finds is proven (with evidence) beyond reasonable doubt that the crime did not occur. This makes the number of false report very low, and where the 2-10% comes from. To me that is just not very sincere approach.
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
When Franklin first said that, the "those" he was talking about was the Pennsylvania Assembly. They were trying to impose taxes to raise money to defend the frontier.
The Governor kept vetoing these attempts, because the taxes would affect the Penn family.
Franklin wrote a letter to the Governor objecting to this, and included that quote.
The "essential liberty" he was talking about was the liberty of the Assembly to exercise its power to impose taxes even if they would affect the Penn family. The "purchase" he was talked about was literally the buying of weapons to arm those defending the frontier.
Later, he used that quote again but with more the sense that most people use it for now. Someone on Reddit once gave me a reference to where he did that, but they were one of those people who deletes their posts after a while and I didn't save the link in time.
How would giving up the "liberty to impose taxes" help to purchase weapons to defend the frontier?
So we don't need to wonder, we know: police and CPS administratively close the case.
How about everyone just keeps a secondary dumb phone to hand over when they feel that the police request is unreasonable.
As a comparison, I am reminded of Swedish statistics. Both people being assaulted in the home and sexually assaulted shared the same clearing rate. If rape is under-investigated in the UK we should expect those data to look very different unless both crimes are under-investigated, in which case I must ask what the norm is for which the claim of under-investigated is based on.
Here are the stats showing decline after the collapse of the high profile cases: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeand...
Here are some news reports:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/mar/06/prosecution-...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48095118
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/crime-statistics...
Who's judging what's reasonable here? What stops them making requests victims would rightfully consider unreasonable so the police can just claim that the victim was uncooperative so it doesn't negatively impact police statistics?
Not holding my breath. They seem to have no clue that in accessing a user's device, they are also violating the privacy of that user's friends.
A judge is supposed to look at the evidence and if there isn't any there isn't much to be done. We don't prosecute people based on feelings and hunches or flipping a coin.
Too much sensitivity. Be more selective before deciding to prosecute.
There are over 150,000 rapes in the UK each year, and only about 5,000 prosecutions.
In the cases that collapsed there wasn't no evidence. There was evidence that the events happened, and that there's some dispute about what happened.
Here's an English barrister talking about the guidance: https://twitter.com/BarristerSecret/status/11228239278042275...
tl;dr it doesn't say what you think it says.
It bears reading.
Unrolled version of the above. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1122823927804227586.html
> Most sexual assaults are committed by people who are known to the victims, and there might be electronic proof of friendly communications between them. As a result, according to Victim Support, a nonprofit group in England and Wales, the new policy could discourage victims from reporting, fearing that they will not be believed.
> But the form was criticized because of the possible repercussions for victims who refuse to lay bare their digital lives: The police and prosecutors might drop their cases.
The opposition is just nonsense.
If you complain a crime has been committed, it's always been expected that your property can be searched for evidence, and that if you refuse to cooperate, they might not proceed with your case.
If you claim that an assault happened on your property, but refuse to allow police to investigate because it might reveal exculpatory evidence or unrelated things you don't want found, they're likely to drop your case as well.
I'm tired of these advocates for regressive policies using victims as macabre totems for their causes:
There's a reason we require police to be able to investigate, and it's a good one.
But you seem to have lots of faith that the police won't investigate anything else they find and are equating one small and limited search of something to free-reign over looking through someone's entire digital life, which is incredibly intrusive.
Just because I may allow or even want a police officer on my property to examine my garage that was broken into, doesn't mean that I want to invite 10 police officers to look through every closet and drawer on my property, and take home all my childhood diaries.
That seems beyond excessive, and could easily lead to the police going out of their way or using automated mean to scan your entire life for other things they could charge you with.
It would be similar to having your car robbed while parked at a shopping mall, then having the police refuse to help unless they could search your entire house too.
How is this any different?
I'm squicked out about the invasion like many are, and if I thought about it carefully I expect I would come out against the idea, but I can actually see the case for this invasion.
In that case, they are being investigated as suspects and should obtain all of the due process that suspects are afforded under the law. Reasonable suspicion, warrants, etc. should all be obtained - not "we won't investigate the crime unless you surrender your rights and permit us to investigate you as a suspect without warrant or cause."
- they have no evidence they ever had a car
- bank records do not show evidence of any purchases of a car or insurance
- registration records do not support the person had a car registered to them
The yes the police will probably start investigating them for fraud as they do many of thousands of times are year, and they may well seek forensic computer evidence.
But sex crimes do have a stigma in society and there is for many a reason, though mostly though historical injustices and injustices that still transpire today have produced. This the tendency to lean towards guilty until proven innocent, over innocent until proven guilty, can and do play out socially and in a majority of people's mindsets.
Equally there have in the UK, there have been cases of false rape claims, for various reasons and access to all information pertinent in establishing a crime is what the law and justice demand.
Whilst many may feel such actions as a blanket are bad taste, there have been instances in which justice would of been perverted had it not been forthcoming and justice for all is what is needed.
Will this or any of the examples you outline hinder justice - nope. But if those examples are hindered, then justice suffers.
Also worth noting that with this law, it will in instances help support the case and expedite it, think about domestic abuse here. So whilst it may leave a bad taste and for some victims, feel like an intrusion into their life, it is an intrusion that is in there best interest to help bring about swifter justice. If anything it just formalises full-disclosure and supeaner avenues and bureaucracy in courts - hence speeds up justice. Which is in everybody's interest.
In England there are over 150,000 rapes each year (From the annual crime survey). Only about 5,000 are prosecuted, and only about 2,500 are convicted - and many of those are people pleading guilty.
For the last year we have figures for there were 4517 prosecutions, 2635 convictions and 1882 unsucessful prosecutions.
Of those convictions there were 1,522 people pleading guilty, and 1,112 people found guilty at trial. (One person found guilty in their absence).
These numbers don't appear to support the idea that people are seen as guilty and have to prove their innocence.
We know the police do, as they admit as much. They explicitly say they have a policy of believing the victim at which point they sign up to the prosecution rather than investigating both sides. This is not in dispute - they openly admit it, usually as a reassurance to "victims".
By the courts? Well if you look at the carriage of a trial, the fact the accuser gets to give evidence over a TV, advice to juries about "myths" (but never the myth that women never lie about rape), tight controls over what evidence the defense can even raise or how they can test the evidence against them (but not the prosecution)...the system is stacked against the accused in a way that is miles away from a fair trial. Simply allowing a trial without evidence could be said to be guilty until proven innocent.
The jury? Well that varies, but given the proportion of not guilty verdicts, thankfully not most of the time. Juries aren't perfect, but the reason we have them is to protect the accused from people like you.
If you had an ounce of self awareness you might put yourself in Mark Pearson's shoes and ask, if that was you, would you still be shilling for the CPS?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/man-falsely-...