
U.K. Police Have a Message for Crime Victims: Hand over Your Private Data - bookofjoe
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/29/world/europe/rape-victim-data-privacy-uk.html
======
dgellow
> 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 consent
> proportionately and consistently.”

I’m sorry for not having something smarter to say, but what the actual fuck?
That sounds like what a tech company would say to try to justify their new
data policy. That’s terrible coming from an institution that is supposed to
protect people under its jurisdiction.

~~~
jessriedel
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 catching and punishing criminals after-the-
fact, and they have wide discretion to choose which crimes to enforce on. So
the only protection is in the form of criminal disincentives (which are
extremely important, of course).

~~~
username223
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.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
> 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!

~~~
username223
> How? Which political party or independents promote a policy to reduce police
> powers?

Policing is mostly local, so I think this is an area where there's a real
chance to make things better. National politics are hopelessly tribal in the
US, but city/county level politics are much less so. Go to city council
meetings. Pay attention, and complain if they try to buy leftover military
hardware like a BearCat[1]. Vote for and talk to your councillors. Organize a
petition to de-militarize your local police force.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenco_BearCat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenco_BearCat)

------
abvdasker
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 knowing in advance that criminal B could
not report criminal A without being implicated in a different crime when they
hand over their digital info).

So it's easy to see how this kind of policy can counterintuitively end up
increasing crime by making it easier for someone who has committed a crime to
get away with it.

~~~
battletested
> 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.

~~~
r_c_a_d
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...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/liam-allan-met-police-
rape-accusation-false-evidence-disclosure-arrest-mistake-
detectives-a8184916.html)

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.

~~~
mefsb
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?

~~~
Veen
_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.

------
smnrchrds
Yet another Black Mirror episode proven prophetic.

If I remember correctly, season 1, episode 3 "The Entire History of You"
depicted a world where most people had eye and ear implants that recorded
everything they saw and heard. When one of the characters who did not have the
implant called the police to ask for help as she watched her boyfriend being
beaten up, the cop requested to to be given access to her implant. When she
said she did not have one, they simply hanged up on her.

And now, less than 8 years later, here we are.

------
dustinmoris
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 serious sexual assault cases collapsed
> when crucial evidence emerged."

I'd recommend reading this instead:
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48086244](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48086244)

~~~
DanBC
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...](https://www.cps.gov.uk/cps/news/handing-over-mobile-phone-
data-rape-prosecutions)

I agree the press coverage has been terrible.

------
JulianMorrison
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 unreliable.
Regardless if you actually are.

If the UK switched to a continental style system of judge-led discovery, this
kind of fishing for anything that looks bad might become less prevalent. But
that isn't presently in the offing.

~~~
deogeo
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.

~~~
DanBC
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.

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

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

~~~
DanBC
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.

~~~
deogeo
> That's not necessarily true though is it? [..] Two people can have different
> interpretations of events without one of them making maliciously false
> allegations.

You don't even have to go that far - the allegation could be _true_ , but
newly uncovered evidence could cast sufficient doubt that the accused is not
found guilty. E.g. an eyewitness correctly identifies an assailant, but it is
later revealed she wasn't wearing her prescription glasses.

------
bennybob
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...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-
england-42873618)

~~~
tropdrop
Ah, yes, so if you are a victim of a violent crime (let's say, someone mugged
you at gunpoint, but did not bruise you - just held you at gunpoint until you
surrendered your wallet), it seems perfectly reasonable for the police to hold
your phone for weeks or months, searching through all of your photos
(including the occasional nude photo of your spouse), in order to MAYBE find
that one of your contacts might be a culprit of the theft?

Maybe you delete the nude photos (you are really not comfortable with other
people getting to see your naked spouse), but police notice you deleted some
photos. How do they not know those aren't evidence of your mugger? They tell
you the case is invalid, since deleting photos seems suspicious.

Does not seem fair enough to me.

The incidence of false accusation of rape is fairly low - depending on the
statistic you find and country, either less than or roughly at parity with
accusation of other crimes - between 2 and 10 percent [1]. Remember that the
reporting of rape or sexual assault is low, compared to other crimes - I
personally know several women who regularly sport bruises from their abusive
partner, but who refuse to turn them in (and I am in no position to turn them
in - the choice is entirely up to the victim and will backfire in my losing
any ability to help them in the future, if I do).

The cases of false rape accusations, however, tend to be _highly_ visible,
since they are often made by a desperate woman seeking to profit off a rich
celebrity. Meanwhile, just like car accidents, the media tends to report only
the most gruesome crashes/rapes, since this is an event that happens so often
that reporting it every time is not newsworthy.

[1]
[https://www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/files/Publications_NSVRC...](https://www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/files/Publications_NSVRC_Overview_False-
Reporting.pdf)

~~~
belorn
We should be careful when researcher themselves say that the data is
unreliable. When it comes to false rape rates it is doubly so, as there is no
common definition.

If we use the same definition as for conviction, ie proven beyond reasonable
doubt that a crime did not occur, you get similar single digit. In one case it
is the court that define proven beyond reasonable doubt and in the other the
police, but they more or less is the same single digit of the total number of
reported cases. We can assume that the police definition is a bit less strict
than the court, but how much is just speculation.

We could use the rate in which prosecutor deem a case likely to succeed and
thus brings it to the court and compare that to the rate which police finds it
proven beyond reasonable doubt that the crime did not occur, but we will still
end up with a huge rate of false reports.

Which is why people tend to compare the total number of reported cases vs
those that police finds is proven (with evidence) beyond reasonable doubt that
the crime did not occur. This makes the number of false report very low, and
where the 2-10% comes from. To me that is just not very sincere approach.

------
saagarjha
Discussed yesterday as well, albeit using a BBC article:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19777513](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19777513)

------
Romanulus
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."

~~~
tzs
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.

~~~
jstanley
That doesn't make any sense.

How would _giving up_ the "liberty to impose taxes" help to purchase weapons
to defend the frontier?

~~~
tzs
I probably should have mentioned that the Penn family offered to give a lump
sum toward frontier defense in exchange for the Assembly acknowledging that it
did not have the power to tax their lands.

------
zknz
Decent overview here - [https://counselofperfection.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-
truth-l...](https://counselofperfection.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-truth-laid-
bare-mobile-phones-and.html)

------
tootahe45
I'm against mass collection to narrow down on potential suspects and solve
petty crimes, but if you're ready to ruin someone's life by accusing them of
sexual assault or rape, you shouldn't be concerned with some data on your
phone, actually, you should be happy the data is there to support your line of
events. The fact that cases have been pushed through without such data is what
concerns me. Not everyone is an expert communicator who can defend themselves
(or avoid making mistakes) in an aggressive police questioning, the data is
paramount to get to the truth. I _had_ a friend who falsely accused someone
and she was also very reluctant to hand over her phone to police because it
would've proved she was out of town with me. Police dropped her case
thankfully, so this isn't UK-specific, but I do wonder if the guy would've
even got a fair chance given he had a criminal history.

------
Starknaked
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?

~~~
DanBC
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.

~~~
belorn
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.

~~~
DanBC
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...](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/sexualoffendingcrownprosecutionserviceappendixtables)

Here are some news reports:

[https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/mar/06/prosecution-...](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/mar/06/prosecution-
rate-in-england-and-wales-falls-to-five-year-low)

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48095118](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48095118)

[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/crime-
statistics...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/crime-statistics-
uk-justice-prosecution-rates-rape-victims-disclosure-police-
funding-a8747191.html)

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45650463](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45650463)

------
natch
Still waiting for the day when I receive a form asking for my consent for
authorities to see private media I have shared with a friend whose device they
are prying into.

Not holding my breath. They seem to have no clue that in accessing a user's
device, they are also violating the privacy of that user's friends.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
Oh I’m sure they do know.

------
majortennis
i read that it's 2% conviction rate in the UK. that has to be the most
discouraging thing. Get privacy invaded for a 1/50 shot of a conviction and
then the sentences aren't huge this is so messed up

~~~
Tsubasachan
To be fair rape is difficult to prove. It often comes down to two people
telling different things.

A judge is supposed to look at the evidence and if there isn't any there isn't
much to be done. We don't prosecute people based on feelings and hunches or
flipping a coin.

------
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.

~~~
DanBC
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.

------
DanBC
Here's the CPS guidance being talked about:
[https://www.cps.gov.uk/cps/news/handing-over-mobile-phone-
da...](https://www.cps.gov.uk/cps/news/handing-over-mobile-phone-data-rape-
prosecutions)

Here's an English barrister talking about the guidance:
[https://twitter.com/BarristerSecret/status/11228239278042275...](https://twitter.com/BarristerSecret/status/1122823927804227586)

tl;dr it doesn't say what you think it says.

~~~
tomalpha
That Secret Barrister link paints a very different (and much more measured)
picture to what's been splashed on the front pages of the newspapers.

It bears reading.

Unrolled version of the above.
[https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1122823927804227586.html](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1122823927804227586.html)

------
stebann
This is terrible!

------
NotAnEconomist
> “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 victims,
> and there might be electronic proof of friendly communications between them.
> As a result, according to Victim Support, a nonprofit group in England and
> Wales, the new policy could discourage victims from reporting, fearing that
> they will not be believed.

> But the form was criticized because of the possible repercussions for
> victims who refuse to lay bare their digital lives: The police and
> prosecutors might drop their cases.

The opposition is just nonsense.

If you complain a crime has been committed, it's always been expected that
your property can be searched for evidence, and that if you refuse to
cooperate, they might not proceed with your case.

If you claim that an assault happened on your property, but refuse to allow
police to investigate because it might reveal exculpatory evidence or
unrelated things you don't want found, they're likely to drop your case as
well.

I'm tired of these advocates for regressive policies using victims as macabre
totems for their causes:

There's a reason we require police to be able to investigate, and it's a good
one.

~~~
llamataboot
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.

------
mirimir
If you just carry a dumb phone, all they'll get are contacts and a record of
calls made. And of course, you wouldn't have done anything iffy with that
phone. Or even taken it anywhere iffy. So no problem.

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
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 home for clues.

How is this any different?

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

~~~
RcouF1uZ4gsC
If you say your child was kidnapped, I bet that your Google docs might be
read.

~~~
colejohnson66
But why. What use would my Google Docs have?

~~~
pmichaud
Often when children go missing the parents are responsible or complicit in
some way. People write things down all the time -- a google account may
contain incriminating emails, IM messages, or other documents such as journal
entries.

I'm squicked out about the invasion like many are, and if I thought about it
carefully I expect I would come out against the idea, but I can actually see
the case for this invasion.

~~~
jhayward
> _Often when children go missing the parents are responsible or complicit in
> some way._

In that case, they are being investigated as suspects and should obtain all of
the due process that suspects are afforded under the law. Reasonable
suspicion, warrants, etc. should all be obtained - not "we won't investigate
the crime unless you surrender your rights and permit us to investigate you as
a suspect without warrant or cause."

