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U.K. Police Have a Message for Crime Victims: Hand over Your Private Data

nytimes.com

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Re: U.K. Police Have a Message for Crime Victims: Hand over Your Private Data

#31

Post by DanBC »

dgellow wrote: post #8

> Mr. Ephgrave, the assistant commissioner, acknowledged such concerns in his statement. > “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 c…

I'm not sure I understand your point.

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.

Re: U.K. Police Have a Message for Crime Victims: Hand over Your Private Data

#32

Post by DanBC »

Starknaked wrote: post #22

I wonder how police behaviour would be influenced by refusing to hand over the data? Will they assign less resources to your case because they think you're unhelpful by not turning over your data?

Rape is already under-investigated and under-prosecuted in the UK, and we've seen numbers of prosecutions declining alarmingly after the cases that caused this new guidance to be issued.

So we don't need to wonder, we know: police and CPS administratively close the case.

Re: U.K. Police Have a Message for Crime Victims: Hand over Your Private Data

#33

Post by llamataboot »

NotAnEconomist wrote: post #16

> “Police have a duty to pursue all reasonable lines of enquiry,” Assistant Commissioner Nick Ephgrave, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for criminal justice, said in a statement. “Those now frequently extend into the devices of victims and witnesses as well as suspects — particularly in cases where suspects and victims know each other.” > Most sexual assaults are committed by people who are known to the vict…

There may be a good reason to "investigate" and in some cases that certainly might involve a request to gather some evidence from your house, etc.

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.

Re: U.K. Police Have a Message for Crime Victims: Hand over Your Private Data

#34

Post by NullPrefix »

Starknaked wrote: post #22

I wonder how police behaviour would be influenced by refusing to hand over the data? Will they assign less resources to your case because they think you're unhelpful by not turning over your data?

Obstruction of justice?

Re: U.K. Police Have a Message for Crime Victims: Hand over Your Private Data

#35

Post by DanBC »

Zenst wrote: post #13
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #5

Being a victim of a crime has always meant some loss of privacy. If you are murdered, they will conduct an autopsy of you to determine how you died and possibly a toxicology study to determine what drugs you had in your system. If you were raped, getting a rape exam done is recommended to document injuries and collect DNA samples. If you report your child was kidnapped, the police will likely closely examine your hom…

Valid points that many may disdainfully overlook. But nonetheless, still valid. 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 mindset…

> This the tendency to lean towards guilty until proven innocent

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.

Re: U.K. Police Have a Message for Crime Victims: Hand over Your Private Data

#36

Post by DanBC »

deogeo wrote: post #28
JulianMorrison wrote: post #25

The point being, it would be nice to know the trial isn't going to collapse because the defense got a subpoena on the phone's contents and nobody in the prosecution had plans for what they found. 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 unrelia…

You're talking as if a trial 'collapsing' (I assume this means the accused is found not guilty) is some huge catastrophe, when in fact the possibility of such 'collapse' is the whole point of a trial.

If there's no hope of a conviction because there's evidence that strongly suggests the events didn't happen it would be better to avoid the trial.

Re: U.K. Police Have a Message for Crime Victims: Hand over Your Private Data

#37

Post by tzs »

Romanulus wrote: post #12

Reminds me of the quote (of Benjamin Franklin): "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

That quote has an interesting history.

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.

Re: U.K. Police Have a Message for Crime Victims: Hand over Your Private Data

#38

Post by kyleblarson »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #26
kyleblarson wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't disagree with you at all but have noticed people using the phrase 'what the actual fuck' a lot lately. I can obviously infer that it's adding emphasis but it just doesn't make sense to me.

So, you understand what it means, but you don't understand what it means?

It sounds kludgy and incorrect.

Re: U.K. Police Have a Message for Crime Victims: Hand over Your Private Data

#40

Post by colejohnson66 »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #23
lallysingh wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your car is stolen, it's reasonable that your Google docs are read?

If you say your child was kidnapped, I bet that your Google docs might be read.

But why. What use would my Google Docs have?
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