Live data from Hacker News

UK police secretly downloading content from suspects’ phones (2018)

privacyinternational.org

21–30 of 102 posts

Re: UK police secretly downloading content from suspects’ phones (2018)

#21
post #19

When back in the early 00's the UK wanted to introduce a picture ID card, there were huge protests across the country that resulted in the scheme being shelved indefinitely. It took the UK years to even introduce a picture driving license (you might have seen the "counterpart" old driving licenses which were in use until very recently. They were a single A4 sheet with no picture on it). How ironic that despite the co…

>How ironic that despite the continued protests against picture ID cards based on privacy concerns, the UK is the most watched country based on the number of CCTV cameras per square mile, and now this.

It's because people have given up hope of winning the war against the surveillance state but they still feel like they can opportunistically win a few battles.

Re: UK police secretly downloading content from suspects’ phones (2018)

#22
post #19

When back in the early 00's the UK wanted to introduce a picture ID card, there were huge protests across the country that resulted in the scheme being shelved indefinitely. It took the UK years to even introduce a picture driving license (you might have seen the "counterpart" old driving licenses which were in use until very recently. They were a single A4 sheet with no picture on it). How ironic that despite the co…

Well..CCTV cameras caught the 2005 bomber's at King's Cross Station and helped establish their identities and their full itinerary when cross-referenced with other CCTV videos

Re: UK police secretly downloading content from suspects’ phones (2018)

#23
post #18

TL;DR: Most police forces in the UK are using digital forensic "self service kiosks", which allow ordinary officers to create images of the storage of mobile devices seized during criminal investigations. Privacy International are concerned that policies and procedures surrounding the use of this technology may be inadequate. In particular, they are concerned that the Police and Criminal Evidence Act gives the police…

"Snoopers' Charter" pretty much gave police and other civil law enforcement agencies broad spy agency-level powers. This game was over the moment that law passed.

The law is more than what is written in an act of parliament. Sure, parliament can pass a law that grants anybody any powers – but parliament also passed the Data Protection Act 2018, bringing the GDPR into domestic law. Treaty obligations, legal principles, and the interaction of different overlapping laws can all result in inconsistencies.

The UK government has passed quite a few laws and government departments have taken their own interpretations of these – for instance, the home office has been using tax filing corrections (fairly routine practice in the UK) as evidence of dishonesty – in some cases the amounts owed didn't change – and using these to write the your-immigration-status-has-changed-go-home-before-we-deport-you letter. [0]

A lot of interpretations of legislation fall under the "there is no case law – it is probably unlawful but plenty of others are doing it and the worst that can happen is..." category.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/nov/23/home-office-...

Re: UK police secretly downloading content from suspects’ phones (2018)

#25
Possibly should be labelled "2018" - I believe several courts including the UK High Court and the European Court of Human Rights have found against parts of the Investigatory Powers Act, in addition to ECJ findings in 2016. Practical consequences of that are.. unclear. I'd think the lack of safeguards in the Act is one of the reasons this has become standard practice.

Re: UK police secretly downloading content from suspects’ phones (2018)

#26
post #24
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buy a phone you can completely own.

In which way does this help? I assume the police just plants malware when the device is in their custody.

If the device is encrypted?

Re: UK police secretly downloading content from suspects’ phones (2018)

#28
post #22
post #19

When back in the early 00's the UK wanted to introduce a picture ID card, there were huge protests across the country that resulted in the scheme being shelved indefinitely. It took the UK years to even introduce a picture driving license (you might have seen the "counterpart" old driving licenses which were in use until very recently. They were a single A4 sheet with no picture on it). How ironic that despite the co…

Well..CCTV cameras caught the 2005 bomber's at King's Cross Station and helped establish their identities and their full itinerary when cross-referenced with other CCTV videos

That was done by looking at the tapes afterwards. But hiw.many crimes were actually prevented by the cameras? Do they provably act as a deterrent? In how many cases did the cameras result in help arriving on time?

Re: UK police secretly downloading content from suspects’ phones (2018)

#29
post #19

When back in the early 00's the UK wanted to introduce a picture ID card, there were huge protests across the country that resulted in the scheme being shelved indefinitely. It took the UK years to even introduce a picture driving license (you might have seen the "counterpart" old driving licenses which were in use until very recently. They were a single A4 sheet with no picture on it). How ironic that despite the co…

Because some people are happy with the public discussing ID cards with pictures, when the real deal is somewhere else.

The same in Germany with taxes, people discuss increasing taxes for the rich, who are happy to confront this, because the real deal in Germany is not paying taxes, not paying social security and health insurance by the rich.

Re: UK police secretly downloading content from suspects’ phones (2018)

#30
post #19

When back in the early 00's the UK wanted to introduce a picture ID card, there were huge protests across the country that resulted in the scheme being shelved indefinitely. It took the UK years to even introduce a picture driving license (you might have seen the "counterpart" old driving licenses which were in use until very recently. They were a single A4 sheet with no picture on it). How ironic that despite the co…

Those CCTV cameras are owned and operated by a variety of different individuals, organisations and private companies though.

It's not like its all state surveillance.

Post reply on HN