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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

#91

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

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.

How? Which political party or independents promote a policy to reduce police powers?

And even if there were, or are, any politicians with such a policy we ought to be more suspicious of them!

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

#92

Post by jstanley »

tzs wrote: post #37
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 a…

That doesn't make any sense.

How would giving up the "liberty to impose taxes" help to purchase weapons to defend the frontier?

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

#93

Post by efhuisfsdf »

Starknaked wrote: post #58
bennybob wrote: post #39

This is seems fair enough to me, it's an attempt to prevent this kind of thing happening again: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-engla...

Surely in that case the man accused of the crime would have known they previously had messages from the accuser that were like to be critical to his defence? Did he not make anyone aware of them or did they just ignore it?

I believe in this case it was messages from the accuser to a friend, so the accused would have been unaware

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

#94

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#95

Post by londons_explore »

sundvor wrote: post #80
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…

As a victim you may be prosecuted if police discover something irrelevant to the case, yet still incriminating. This seems to have the potential of severe abuse, if a rapist is aware of such matters they would feel protected to carry out their travesties. What the actual f* indeed.

The rapist isn't guaranteed not to be prosecuted if the victim doesn't hand over data. But you're right that a rapist careful not to leave behind too much other evidence is likely protected.

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

#96

Post by mirimir »

mirimir wrote: post #71
DanBC wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Parent's point, I suspect, is about this: > “If information is identified from your device that suggests the commission of a separate criminal offense, other than the offense(s) under investigation, the relevant data may be retained and investigated by the police,” according to written statement to victims and witnesses that will accompany the consent form. > Anything the police find, it says, will be handed over to…

Upon reflection, I recall that I've been ripped off in drug deals. Fortunately, I was never robbed outright, but that was always a possibility. And I knew that if I had been robbed, I couldn't file a police report. Even if I'd been injured.

But if my car had been stolen, or my house burglarized, there would have been no such constraint. Unless it was that someone had stolen my drugs, anyway.

Now, though, with so much personal data on devices, any interaction with police entails some risk of disclosure. But I guess that's part of what "outlaw" means. In breaking some laws, you give up protection by others. It's just that we used to have enough privacy to finesse it more.

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

#97

Post by DanBC »

hdfbdtbcdg wrote: post #83
deogeo wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would, but I wouldn't want to entirely give up victim privacy for it.

If the accused is innocent then they are the victim and the accuser is the perpetrator.

That's not necessarily true though is it?

Two people can have different interpretations of events without one of them making maliciously false allegations. The complainant can have an honest, sincere, belief that they did not give consent.

And, for phone evidence, there are good reasons why a complainant may say one thing to police but something else to friends of the accused.

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

#98

Post by r_c_a_d »

battletested wrote: post #90
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…

> This seems like it will inevitably discourage victims from reporting crime Indeed. And this new policy will help the police/government to bring down criminality figures. I would be surprised if that is not the actual intent. In a few years they will triumphantly announce that the UK police is doing so well, that it has become a much safer place to live. Welcome to politics.

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 way. I assume after some debate we will settle on a sensible compromise position.

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

#99

Post by Theodores »

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…

I think this national vs local police force thing needs a bit of explaining.

Years ago you could be speeding in one county, cross the county line (e.g. from Devon to Cornwall) and they wouldn't be able to catch you. The cop would have to back off at the 'border'. Or you could get a first offence caution, e.g. for drugs or shop-lifting in one county, then do the same offence in a different county and get another caution rather than be prosecuted properly.

Those days were over a long time ago, when computers arrived those gaps in the system went.

More recently the local stations have been closed with these local districts getting merged. The nearest cells might be in the big town twenty miles away rather than the local police station down the road. That might only have admin staff.

Then the police are now expected to follow everything up themselves using some tablet computer things they have been given. In the olden days someone back at the station would do all the follow up work contacting the victims of crime etc. Nowadays the constable who happens to be on the scene has to follow the incident up through to the end with a tablet computer instead of a team effort.

The government have chosen to make many cuts to the police force which is a little bit silly. The police are important for staying in power and any government needs them on their side. Cutting their pensions, making them work a not so local 'local' area with 'them and us' merger problems and undermining their effectiveness is just plain silly. If there was some type of Brexit related rebellion in the country then the police are no longer 'bought' enough to be guaranteed to always be on the side of government. It has got to that stage of pissing them off.

Anyway, the police are sadly quite underfunded and, as a consequence, there is nothing to fear from this new 'let's read your phone' ruling. The police have enough problems of their own.

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

#100

Post by mefsb »

r_c_a_d wrote: post #98
battletested wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This seems like it will inevitably discourage victims from reporting crime Indeed. And this new policy will help the police/government to bring down criminality figures. I would be surprised if that is not the actual intent. In a few years they will triumphantly announce that the UK police is doing so well, that it has become a much safer place to live. Welcome to politics.

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?

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