Brit cops rapped over app that recorded 200k phone calls
theregister.com
theregister.com
Guardian have something:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/apr/18/surrey-and-s...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-65309114
And it was a story on the news section of the radio station (Classic FM, a nationwide one) I am listening to just now
Edit: reading the judgement shows the phones were issued by the force:
> While it is acknowledged that the App was downloaded onto officially provided encrypted mobile devices, evidence was provided during the investigation to indicate that copies of call recordings had been manually transferred onto removable media
From Collins dictionary of British English
""" Rap: 2 (verb) in the sense of reprimand
Definition to rebuke or criticize sharply """
Other interpretations would have been too good to be true.
I believe both descend from "rap" as a form of rebuke, in one case synonymous with criticism, in the other synonymous with a conviction in a court of law.
I am curious about is the origin of 'rap' as an informal discussion: I want to rap to you today—lyric spoken by Maurice White of "Earth, Wind, and Fire."
I believe that's the origin of the noun Rap as a music genre, which is now mostly known as Hip-Hop.
I'm pretty sure it's jazz talk, so I'd look at urban black culture of the early 20c.
Could have ended up being knock music or call music?
edit: your "rap" is (usually) how you talk to women, and going "calling" was once the same sort of euphemism.
Way to make us feel old! I was at school when children started to have phones, through to MSN and early smart phones, but 'calling on' people was at least the bridge between that and RL interaction. (I'm sure we texted things like 'call on you later'.) Is it not still? Whatever the technology isn't there a need for that?
Obviously language can fade independently of technology, but it was quite funny to note some of the same weird school playground phrases familiar to both me and my father at the same school(s) 30y apart.
OED attests "rap" in this sense of punishment back to the 1860s at least, and "face the rap," "beat the rap," etc., to the early 1900s. "Rap sheet," the 50s.
Not everyone who talks to a police officer is a criminal.
It only applies to those who give testimony against you in court.
If an informant's tip leads to enough hard evidence to convict, they may not need to testify and thus are not your accuser; your accuser is whoever's testifying about that evidence (forensic tech, detective, etc.) Anonymous tips are a thing, after all.
In the UK, even if a witness is giving direct testimony in a trial there are situations which, for safety reasons, the witness might be allowed to be anonymous: https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/witness-protection-and... outlines this.
Imagine there's a stabbing. The police show up and immediately start questioning bystanders. No-one wants to talk. A detective hands out business cards, and says 'if you remember anything, then give me a call on my mobile'.
On the way home, one of the bystanders sees a bloody cloth next to a public bin a block or two away that looks like the knife might be wrapped up in it. They're scared that it might have been a gangland killing, so they call up and report what they saw in confidence, fearing retribution.
The caller's not made any accusation. The physical evidence stands for itself in court. There's no need for an illegal or warrantless search to find the knife, and neither does the tip-off form a basis for creating probable cause for a search.
In this case, at the very least I think it is reasonable for the caller to expect a level of privacy, and the police should be obliged to inform the caller that the call is being recorded.
Also, the app they're talking about isn't a thing that records phone calls on your mobile, it's for accessing the call recorder system.
> Also, the app they're talking about isn't a thing that records phone calls on your mobile, it's for accessing the call recorder system.
That does not seem to be what the article is saying.
> Several police forces in Britain [used] a calling app that recorded hundreds of thousands of phone conversations and illegally retained that data.
> Some 1,015 staff downloaded the software on their work phones and made more than 200,000 records of phone chats, which the regulator reckons was likely with "victims, witnesses, and perpetrators of suspected crimes" and were "automatically saved."
> When enabled, the app records and stores all phone calls made in the mobile device.
because "that was naughty don't do it again" has worked out wonderfully so far.
Ofc, the usual story is that the fines aren’t that high, and can be effectively treated as a cost of doing business, so they do little to nothing for incentives.
1. Insurance. The department isn't out any money and the public gets stuck with higher premiums going forward.
2. General funds. The department isn't out any money and the public has to top up the general fund or forgo other programs.
3. Bonds. The department isn't out any money and public gets double-fucked because they now have to pay fees to the financial industry plus interest.
Is this historically derived from loyal trust in the monarch?
To the extent that the economy is doing well and folks feel like the country is headed in a positive direction they're generally willing to accept an awful lot from the state.
When that inevitably changes though (due to cyclicality), things tend to get spicy.
Don't suspect this has much to do with the King.
To be fair, the US is a poor example. I’d feel safer in any European city at 2am then in a US city in the middle of the day. At least I don’t have to worry about being shot for no reason.¹ In the US I was reminded of that possibility every time I walked into a museum.
¹ https://text.npr.org/2023/04/18/1170593395/kaylin-gillis-new...
I’m Austrian though and hence have a deep distrust of any bureaucracy that records “everything” and generally works too well.
I think it’s a fallacy that these systems can’t / won’t ever be exploited on a larger scale (pretty large already telling from the article..)
Unfortunately part of the problem is that different types of people experience these systems very differently. I'm unremarkable and unlikely to attract the interest of the authorities by association either so most of the ongoing problems you do see in the news don't tend to affect me or those close to me. I remember how one similarly unremarkable person I know was shocked and quite upset when they were challenged by a huge scary-looking guy to show some kind of ticket while travelling in London even though they had one and hadn't done anything wrong. And then I wonder how often a mid-teens black kid living on the estate 25 metres overhead has been "profiled" by the Met and what their experience of being challenged by authority must feel like.
Until we fix the glaring inequalities in our society there will always be big problems lurking underneath sadly.
Why do Americans routinely still believe the UK is an exceptional, universal surveillance state?
There were two studies done (in Kings Lynn in Norfolk and in a section of Putney) that are full of mistakes, that US media has picked up as some kind of indication that the UK is down some dark path the same as China.
People believe every residential street has police cameras (not even close to true) or that the _government_ operates "millions" of cameras (not true), or that there's nowhere you can go in the UK where you can't be immediately followed on camera.
Most of the "millions" of cameras in the studies are, like most of the millions of cameras in the USA, pointing from the back of shop out through the glass at the front. If the police want those they have to ask, on foot, to the manager of the store, and the store manager may require them to have a warrant.
See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_the_Unite...
And then ask yourself: how different is it in the USA?
(Throwaway because I am really done with commenting here, but this CCTV misunderstanding always makes me laugh. Here's a tip: the USA is not really very different. (Except that our police aren't armed to the teeth, you don't get nearly shot to death for going to the wrong house while black, and our politicians don't plan to put prisons next to theme parks to score points)
It's weird that you only focus on the issue of CCTV cameras, when the debate is about much more than that. British authorities are allowed by law to engage in massive surveillance that does not happen even in the US (or at least, not overly and not fully allowed by the law). You might be ok with that, but it's weird to downplay it.
>but it will also introduce new domestic powers, including a government database that stores the web history of every citizen in the country. [..] >Police officers will then be able to access a central search engine known as the "request filter" to retrieve this information. [..] >The key point about this power, though, is that it has no judicial oversight. Access to citizens’ web history will be solely at the discretion of the police, with a specially trained supervising officer approving or denying requests
https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/23/13718768/uk-surveillance...
But I guess CCTVs are not as bad as internet discourse says they are, so whatever.
But then any mention of the UK and americans are like "how do you live in a surveillance state?!"
Of course, I think a large number of Americans don't have direct exposure to the UK system, and have only seen it misused in popular media, eg Hot Fuzz.
Yeah, I guess that wasn't clear from the name of the app...
Either that or use a computer to do the call and record using software on the computer.
I don't know how the latter is done but I know many companies do that.
[0]: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire/helvum
* https://gitlab.com/axet/android-call-recorder
I tested it a few months ago, but since I don't do phone calls any more I don't know what today's status is, if it's still working or not.
MOST PHONES DOES NOT SUPPORT CALL RECORDING. Blame Google or your phone manufacturer not me!