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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

#111

Post by tolien »

DanBC wrote: post #31
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…

There’s also been high profile cases where rape trials have collapsed because of evidence from phones which hasn’t been disclosed to the defence, for example the case of Liam Allan [1].

1: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/rape-trial-colla...

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

#112

Post by justaguyhere »

username223 wrote: post #27
jessriedel wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure about the UK, but in the US the police have no formal duty to protect you. No matter how much warning/info/evidence they have that someone will be victimized, and no matter how easy/reasonable it is for the police to prevent it, citizens are generically not entitled to compensation for failure to be protected. Rather, the police's mission (both formally and as a functional matter) is overwhelmingly about cat…

We can always vote and legislate for something better. From my experience in the US, police vary from decent people just trying to serve society, to up-armored mall cops on power trips. If you give them assault rifles, tanks, and unlimited surveillance, you encourage the worst among them. A guy wearing a uniform and trained in de-escalation instead of "verbal control" could do some good.

We can always vote and legislate for something better

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)

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

#113

Post by morganvachon »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #85
jessriedel wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure about the UK, but in the US the police have no formal duty to protect you. No matter how much warning/info/evidence they have that someone will be victimized, and no matter how easy/reasonable it is for the police to prevent it, citizens are generically not entitled to compensation for failure to be protected. Rather, the police's mission (both formally and as a functional matter) is overwhelmingly about cat…

> in the US the police have no formal duty to protect you 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…

> (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.)

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.

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

#114

Post by mcny »

mindslight wrote: post #81
abvdasker wrote: post #24

This seems like it will inevitably discourage victims from reporting crime. Imagine a scenario where someone is mugged but doesn't want to report it to the police because they have some texts from their weed dealer on their phone: as a result the mugger never gets reported and may mug somebody else. Not to mention the huge opportunities it creates for a kind of blackmail (criminal A commits a crime against criminal B…

Better yet, you can remotely plant discouragement on someone's phone. Catfish someone, send some nudes, reveal as slightly underage. You can then even explicitly mention the blackmail, since even if they could eventually prove it was just a catfish, it would be a huge hassle to do so.

This thread made me realize that while requiring victims to give up privacy is bad, we must thank them because it exposes fundamental issues with the law.

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).

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

#115

Post by Veen »

mefsb wrote: post #100
r_c_a_d wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't think the people in charge are that clever. What is happening here is a reaction to recent cases like this: 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…

What's really terrifying is that this guy's life was being ruined just because some woman later said that a sex encounter was "non-consensual", without any proof of that. Instead of forcing people to give their mobiles, why not use the "innocent until proven guilty" age-old adage?

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.

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

#116

Post by belorn »

DanBC wrote: post #32
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.

Can you share the data that show the numbers of prosecutions declining per reported case, before and after the new guidance was issued?

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.

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

#117

Post by Tsubasachan »

Seems to me this whole shitshow started when the prosecution went into rape cases without any evidence whatsoever aside from "I got raped". A judge doesn't care about politics so a case like that will be thrown out of court. Huge embarrassment, lives ruined, money wasted.

Too much sensitivity. Be more selective before deciding to prosecute.

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

#118

Post by DanBC »

Tsubasachan wrote: post #117

Seems to me this whole shitshow started when the prosecution went into rape cases without any evidence whatsoever aside from "I got raped". A judge doesn't care about politics so a case like that will be thrown out of court. Huge embarrassment, lives ruined, money wasted. Too much sensitivity. Be more selective before deciding to prosecute.

That's an assertion that isn't supported by any facts.

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.

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

#119

Post by DanBC »

dustinmoris wrote: post #104

Wow, this article by the New York times is so different than what news have reported in the UK here. It reads like a cheap tabloit newspaper aimed at getting people angry over an issue by purposefully leaving out facts and details which I would consider borderline lies. 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 seri…

i) it's not new

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.

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

#120

Post by DanBC »

belorn wrote: post #116
DanBC wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can you share the data that show the numbers of prosecutions declining per reported case, before and after the new guidance was issued? 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…

The claim for under-investigation comes from the fact that in English law rape is a very serious offence, and carries a similar sentence structure as murder. There are 150,000 rapes per year (according to the annual crime survey, which probably under-counts rape) and there are only 5,000 prosecutions each year.

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...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45650463

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