<story><title>U.K. Police Have a Message for Crime Victims: Hand over Your Private Data</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/29/world/europe/rape-victim-data-privacy-uk.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>DanBC</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m not sure I understand your point.&lt;p&gt;In England we don&amp;#x27;t have a national police force; we have lots of local forces. There&amp;#x27;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.&lt;p&gt;The new guidance is telling police precisely what they can (and thus can&amp;#x27;t) ask for, and when (and thus when not) they can ask for it.&lt;p&gt;Fishing expeditions are not allowed.</text></item><item><author>dgellow</author><text>&amp;gt; Mr. Ephgrave, the assistant commissioner, acknowledged such concerns in his statement.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; “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.”&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; “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.”&lt;p&gt;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.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mirimir</author><text>Parent&amp;#x27;s point, I suspect, is about this:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; “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.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Anything the police find, it says, will be handed over to prosecutors. And in some cases, devices might not be given back to their owners for weeks or even months.&lt;p&gt;That sounds a lot like &amp;quot;fishing expeditions&amp;quot;.</text></comment>
<story><title>U.K. Police Have a Message for Crime Victims: Hand over Your Private Data</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/29/world/europe/rape-victim-data-privacy-uk.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>DanBC</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m not sure I understand your point.&lt;p&gt;In England we don&amp;#x27;t have a national police force; we have lots of local forces. There&amp;#x27;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.&lt;p&gt;The new guidance is telling police precisely what they can (and thus can&amp;#x27;t) ask for, and when (and thus when not) they can ask for it.&lt;p&gt;Fishing expeditions are not allowed.</text></item><item><author>dgellow</author><text>&amp;gt; Mr. Ephgrave, the assistant commissioner, acknowledged such concerns in his statement.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; “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.”&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; “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.”&lt;p&gt;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.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>claudiawerner</author><text>The point being made by GP is that the rules are already too broad; simply writing them down does very little (if anything) to address the worry about data intrusion. If I were to do something horrible to another person, they wouldn&amp;#x27;t have much reassurance if I said &amp;quot;here&amp;#x27;s a list of what I can (and thus can&amp;#x27;t) do to you, and when (and thus when not) I can do it to you&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m a very data security conscious person. If something bad happened to me the last thing I&amp;#x27;d want is for the police to say that they can&amp;#x27;t continue to work on my case unless I grant them access to my device(s) and then trust them to not be (deliberately or not) &amp;quot;incompetent&amp;quot; with what they&amp;#x27;re doing. If anything this should be part of a policy in which victims elect to volunteer information when asked if there&amp;#x27;s anything that could help the case. I can actually easily imagine a case in which I&amp;#x27;ve been sexually assaulted (and this has happened to me) and I would not go to the police if they had a policy like this.&lt;p&gt;If the police are searching on my phone, what if I have something illegal I don&amp;#x27;t want them to see? Something they might think is &amp;#x27;concerning&amp;#x27; that they can write down and decide to pursue later? What if I&amp;#x27;m a sex worker and they can find out through looking at my phone, and even gather proof that fact?  And before we say that we can trust them to be competent, what about the other story here?[0] What about the myriad of horrible laws that are passed in England and Wales which restrain even private possession of comics?&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=19785416&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=19785416&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>