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

privacyinternational.org

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

#51
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 doesn't mean its worth it. There is always a tradeoff and I would rather live in a world where I know I am free from surveillance than a world where I am .000001% safer or criminals are caught 10% faster.

> That doesn't mean its worth it.

Just the presence of surveillance alone discourages criminals from acting in the first place. Without any surveillance, I don't think criminal activity will increase by just .000001%.

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

#52
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 doesn't mean its worth it. There is always a tradeoff and I would rather live in a world where I know I am free from surveillance than a world where I am .000001% safer or criminals are caught 10% faster.

It's not just safety vs. privacy, it's safety vs. safety: pervasive surveillance can and does make us less safe due to the potential for a future, less benevolent, government to abuse it to oppress politically unpopular groups.

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

#53
post #46
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well. Strangely I happen to be one of the folks in that .000001%, so I apologize if my opinions have been shaped differently. I lost one of my ex-school mates in an market-place explosion (2005 Delhi bombing). While the London Bombing suspects were identified, all suspects in the Delhi bombing that same year were released due to "lack of evidence". I am completely in favor of surveillance of public property.

But if we make a world safe from these .000001% events, what do you think that will look like? I can only imagine a dystopian/ Orwellian society where we are all encouraged to report any suspicious behavior and everything becomes a race to the bottom, a Prisoner's Dilemma where I feel pressured to rat out my neighbor for _something_ before he does it to me.

Who's asking everyone to report suspicious behaviour ? You have raised a _strawman_ argument. Automatic surveillance of public property and public spaces is in my opinion necessary for analysis, investigation and prosecution of terrorists. This must be done by career intelligence folks not by amateurs.

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

#54
post #49
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well. Strangely I happen to be one of the folks in that .000001%, so I apologize if my opinions have been shaped differently. I lost one of my ex-school mates in an market-place explosion (2005 Delhi bombing). While the London Bombing suspects were identified, all suspects in the Delhi bombing that same year were released due to "lack of evidence". I am completely in favor of surveillance of public property.

The question is where do you draw the line for removing privacy to enable law enforcement? Would you consider a system that monitors every individual at all times because it would almost guarantee that any criminal is identified?

No. As I mentioned, automatic surveillance of public spaces is OK. Automatic surveillance of private spaces (which includes your phone) is not.

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

#55
post #40
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…

The National ID Card controversy wasn't simply about a photo-ID card (as noted, UK driving licenses are biometric photo-ID cards—and have been since before the NID was mooted). The real problem was the integration of a National Identity Register, a universal biometric ID database storing numerous non-essential items that was to act as a central authentication point for access to all government (and many corporate) se…

Where the hell are all these Brexit loons when you need them? ID card protests for window dressing only - as long as it's Her Majesty's surveillance state instead of the EUSSR Bob's your uncle?

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

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of iOS, it would require access to the phone or iCloud account. Health data is encrypted on device and in cloud storage [1] - see the "Health & Fitness" section. [1] https://www.apple.com/uk/privacy/approach-to-privacy/

Yes they cannot get anything from a modern iOS device. But they can still (for now) use a warrant to get anything from iCloud. Apple is working on making even that impossible.

It depends on whether it's end-to-end encrypted or not. Unfortunately only some iCloud data is, not all of it (nor is there an option for all of it), but they have been slowly expanding the magic circle there. Health data is a recent addition actually, according to Apple's iCloud security page (HT202303) it is E2E as of iOS 12. Before that it presumably would have been available via warrant, but if someone has all their current devices updated it shouldn't be. Looks like the current full list is:

  Home data
  Health data (iOS 12+) 
  iCloud Keychain
  Messages in iCloud
  Payment information
  Quicktype Keyboard learned vocabulary (iOS 11+)
  Screen Time
  Siri information
  Wi-Fi network information
One odd and notable exclusion though is iCloud Backups. If you use that feature, at least from what I can tell it can actually compromises the E2E of some of the others since keys are stored as part of the backups. I guess Apple considers backups to be more important to the general population to have fallbacks for, but it's also a big privacy hole and I still consider it a bummer that they don't at least have an option to not store keys with Apple there and just have it be an encrypted blob (with UI for printing out recovery keys and such of course, but they've long had that for FileVault already).

Also worth noting that Apple's overall scheme for multi-factor and general Apple ID auth and management remains an irritating worrying clusterfuck, but at least there have been some ongoing improvements I guess.

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

#57
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The National ID Card controversy wasn't simply about a photo-ID card (as noted, UK driving licenses are biometric photo-ID cards—and have been since before the NID was mooted). The real problem was the integration of a National Identity Register, a universal biometric ID database storing numerous non-essential items that was to act as a central authentication point for access to all government (and many corporate) se…

Where the hell are all these Brexit loons when you need them? ID card protests for window dressing only - as long as it's Her Majesty's surveillance state instead of the EUSSR Bob's your uncle?

Because the one thing that old people fear more than Brussels is the teenagers down the block. If you truly believe that you are "good" and that only other people are "bad" then things like picture ID seem warm and friendly.

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

#58
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…

Oh Shit - I had NO idea the old driving licenses were invalid!

Oh Gosh. It's been years since I owned a car, but I've been merrily hiring them here and abroad two or three times a year. I'm a bit surprised that no one has denied me a vehicle as a result :\

Thanks for the heads up - I guess I need to get mine updated!

- ed

OH. PHEW. @KineticLensman states this isn't quite the case in another response here. I did wodner why none of the hire companies had said anything!

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

#59
post #33

I'm confused. Can they copy raw data of iPhones? Even if the encryption is not breakable today, it might be in the future.

Part of the functionality is "access to SIM", so they can pop it out and get the IMSI plus any texts or addressbook data stored there. Although I doubt the iPhone uses those features.

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

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't mean its worth it. There is always a tradeoff and I would rather live in a world where I know I am free from surveillance than a world where I am .000001% safer or criminals are caught 10% faster.

It's not just safety vs. privacy, it's safety vs. safety: pervasive surveillance can and does make us less safe due to the potential for a future, less benevolent, government to abuse it to oppress politically unpopular groups.

Do you have any proof to backup your empty claim? It may discourage pocket picker at your local market.. when it comes to blowing up King Cross I bet you more survelieance the more incouraging to terror. These folls live for five minute survelliance video of one of their own walking down with backpack across few CCTV cameras on all national News Stations, so yeah I bet you its a one big fat encouragement to them to harm more.
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