The Information Commissioner has said that victims and witnesses in England and Wales could be put off reporting crimes to the police
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has warned that police in the UK are extracting “excessive amounts of personal data” from victims through their mobile phones, as well as witnesses during investigations and are in danger of discouraging the British public from reporting crimes.
In a critical research study of the data extraction policies used by police in the UK, the ICO concludes that the procedures are inconsistent across forces throughout England and Wales and calls for the implementation of a new statutory code of practice to help provide “greater clarity” to the policies.
This comes after the President of the United States is “stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House, let alone the huge government”, a new book says.
This report follows the criticism of the criminal justice system that has occurred over the fall in rape convictions throughout the UK, as well as the introduction of a new digital police consent form.
Elizabeth Denham, the information commissioner, said:
“Current mobile phone extraction practices and rules risk negatively affecting public confidence in our criminal justice system.”
“Police data extraction practices vary across the country, with excessive amounts of personal data often being extracted, stored, and made available to others, without an appropriate basis in existing data protection law.”
“People expect to understand how their personal data is being used, regardless of the legal basis for processing. My concern is that an approach that does not seek this engagement risks dissuading citizens from reporting crime, and victims may be deterred from assisting police.”
The report notes that individuals see mobile phones “as extensions of themselves; they have become unique repositories of our personal information, generating huge amounts of data and often hold the most intimate and private details of our everyday lives”.
Data extraction methods used by police “appeared excessive in many cases, with little or no justification or demonstration of strict necessity and proportionality”, it adds.
London’s victim’s commissioner, Claire Waxman, who raised concerns with the ICO, has said that: “Major changes are needed in how the criminal justice system gathers and uses the personal data of victims and how this is being communicated to victims … Current practices around how police collect mobile phone data, how much data they request and how it is shared with others, are damaging public confidence in our criminal justice system, and can deter victims from pursuing the justice they deserve.”
“We still need to understand how these requests from the police and the CPS for excessive personal data are fuelling high levels of victims withdrawing from cases,” she said.
“Whilst I welcome the work … the recommendations have not gone far enough to provide the clarity the police urgently need to ensure a consistent approach that not only complies with data protection laws but is needed for victims to feel confident when reporting a crime that their data will not be used to discredit them and will be handled securely and with respect throughout the criminal justice process.”
This comes after two police officers were injured in what the home secretary has described as a “disgusting, violent attack” in Hackney.
Kate Ellis, a solicitor at the Centre for Women’s Justice, said: “We are constantly being referred cases where victims of serious sexual offending are extremely distressed that they have been asked to agree to a full or very extensive download from their mobile phones, whether or not it’s proportionate to the facts of the case. Victims are frequently being told that they have no choice, or the suspect will not be prosecuted.”
The study found that police officers had asked for the complainant’s mobile phone data in 84 sexual assault cases.
And every one of the 14 of those in which the complainant had declined had then been dropped by police.
