[Omah]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18102793

The Metropolitan Police has implemented a system to extract mobile phone data from suspects held in custody.

The data includes call history, texts and contacts, and the BBC has learned that it will be retained regardless of whether any charges are brought.

Campaign group Privacy International described the move as a "possible breach of human rights law".

Until now, officers had to send mobiles off for forensic examination in order to gather and store data, a process which took several weeks.

Under the new system, content will be extracted using purpose built terminals in police stations.

It will allow officers to connect a suspect's mobile and produce a print out of data from the device, as well as saving digital records of the content.

Guidelines given to officers state that data extraction can happen only if there is sufficient suspicion the mobile phone was used for criminal activity.

Privacy International has expressed serious concern over the system.

"We are looking at a possible breach of human rights law," spokeswoman Emma Draper told the BBC.

"It is illegal to indefinitely retain the DNA profiles of individuals after they are acquitted or released without charge, and the communications, photos and location data contained in most people's smartphones is at least as valuable and as personal as DNA."

Ms Draper added that while the Met's current plans were limited to fixed extraction terminals in stations, portable technology was readily available.

"Examining suspects' mobile phones after they are arrested is one thing, but if this technology was to be taken out onto the streets and used in stop-and-searches, that would be a significant and disturbing expansion of police powers."

"sufficient suspicion" and "permanent retention" are very contentious .....

So it's a from me .....

[Kizzy]

Im really torn on this, it is an invasion yes...However in the interests of public safety or counter terrorism...I dunno

[Omah]

Originally Posted by kizzy

Im really torn on this, it is an invasion yes...However in the interests of public safety or counter terrorism...I dunno

Given these "powers" and if the police just "suspect" you, the police could extract the information you hold, say, on your 200 friends

If, say, your local force performs similar extraction 1000 times a year, they would be holding data on, say, 200,000 people (probably less) - if there are 20 police forces performing similar extraction they would be holding data on 4,000,000 people (probably less) - in a few short years, the police could be holding (very) personal data on just about everybody .....

[Kizzy]

I was under the impression that data could only be stored for a specific time?

[Omah]

Originally Posted by kizzy

I was under the impression that data could only be stored for a specific time?

Apparently not .....

[Jack_]

This better not be happening. What a ridiculous breach of civil liberties.

[Niall]

If you've got nothing to hide, the you've got nothing to worry about.

[Firewire]

Originally Posted by Niall

If you've got nothing to hide, the you've got nothing to worry about.

what if they see our sexts

[Niall]

Originally Posted by Firewire

what if they see our sexts

[Jack_]

Originally Posted by Niall

If you've got nothing to hide, the you've got nothing to worry about.

That's what they'd like you to believe.

What if it got into the wrong hands?

[Niall]

Originally Posted by Jack_

That's what they'd like you to believe.

What if it got into the wrong hands?

Take up the problem with the IPCC?

[Scarlett.]

Oh **** they will known I've only ever made one call on my phone, **** **** **** **** ****

[Livia]

Originally Posted by Niall

If you've got nothing to hide, the you've got nothing to worry about.

Pretty much word for word what I was going to say.

[MTVN]

Couldn't you use that to justify pretty much any invasion of privacy though, why not have cameras in everybody's home, after all if you've got nothing to hide than you've nothing to fear

I'm not comfortable with the ever increasing power being put into the hands of the state when it comes to people's private lives. Like Jack said, what if it gets into the wrong hands, who guards the guards

[Livia]

Originally Posted by MTVN

Couldn't you use that to justify pretty much any invasion of privacy though, why not have cameras in everybody's home, after all if you've got nothing to hide than you've nothing to fear

I'm not comfortable with the ever increasing power being put into the hands of the state when it comes to people's private lives

It's hardly the same thing as having a camera in everyone's house. I was referring only to this instance. They won't be rounding up random people and looking at their phone. They're welcome to look at mine, it'd bore the bits off 'em.

[MTVN]

Originally Posted by Livia

It's hardly the same thing as having a camera in everyone's house. I was referring only to this instance. They won't be rounding up random people and looking at their phone. They're welcome to look at mine, it'd bore the bits off 'em.

I'm not saying it but you could use that principle to justify almost any invasion of privacy could you not? It's what they said with ID cards, it's what they said with CCTV cameras, it's what they said with closer Internet monitoring etc etc. You can still be uncomfortable about the authorities having access to your private life without that meaning you must have something illegal to hide

[joeysteele]

I'm not exactly sure I could go along with the if you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to worry about, the point is there are some things that people should have the right to say they do not want available to anyone never mind just the police.

The Police have problems with leaks and lost materials too and unless someone is heavily suspected of possibly being involved in or have committed wrong then their private affairs should remain that, 'private'.

Not a question of hiding anything,just plain human decency and respect that should be a right for people not free for authorities or anyone else to go poking into.
Innocent people have suffered at the hands of the law before.This proposal is wrong in my opinion.

[MTVN]

Originally Posted by joeysteele

I'm nit exactly sure I could go along with the if you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to worry about, the point is there are some things that people should have the right to say they do not want available to anyone never mind just the police.

The Police have problems with leaks and lost materials too and unless someone is heavily suspected of possibly being involved in or have committed wrong then their private affairs should remain that, 'private'.

Not a question of hiding anything,just plain human decency and respect that should be a right for people not free for authorities or anyone else to go poking into.
Innocent people have suffered at the hands of the law before, this proposal is wrong in my opinion.

Good post Joey

[Omah]

Originally Posted by Niall

If you've got nothing to hide, the you've got nothing to worry about.

If you've got nothing to hide, your friends/contacts may have and then you'll be implicated .....

[Omah]

Originally Posted by MTVN

I'm not saying it but you could use that principle to justify almost any invasion of privacy could you not? It's what they said with ID cards, it's what they said with CCTV cameras, it's what they said with closer Internet monitoring etc etc. You can still be uncomfortable about the authorities having access to your private life without that meaning you must have something illegal to hide

Yeah, exactly - it's yet another encroachment on personal privacy and civil liberty .....

[Kizzy]

They will not be interested in joe bloggs phone or his sext to his bit on the side...It will be those suspected of certain crimes, terrorism..Trafficking..
In such cases I guess the human rights of the victims/potential victims outweigh the accused?...

[InOne]

Seems ridiculous really. Someone once told me they felt like having a mobile was like being tagged, looks like this could be coming true and to an extent it already is.

[Omah]

Originally Posted by kizzy

They will not be interested in joe bloggs phone or his sext to his bit on the side...It will be those suspected of certain crimes, terrorism..Trafficking..

Nope, ANY crime :

Last year, the National Policing Improvement Agency placed mobile phone evidence in the top tier of training requirements for officers, teaching them how to secure evidence gleaned from handsets, with 3,500 officers a year expected to take the course.

The police and private forensic experts have no compunction about unlocking the secrets stored in smartphones

On top of in-house expertise, a huge number of handsets are sent to forensic specialists for analysis to discover where they’ve been and what they contain. “From what we see, 18 months or two years ago the proportion of smartphones we were seeing compared to PCs was very small,” said Phil Ridley, a mobile phone analyst with CCL-Forensics. “Now it’s well over half the devices that we see. We see both prosecution and defence – as well as private cases.”

Your smartphone could place you at the scene of a crime, destroy an alibi or maybe even provide one – which is why one of the first things police now do at the scene of a crime is take away a suspect’s mobile. “There’s so much in there,” said Ridley. “Pictures, notations, communications records, location information from cell records and Wi-Fi. You have navigation information in there from satnav software – the list goes on.”

With so much potentially incriminating evidence available to the police, you might think that there would be privacy protection in place to stop authorities probing your handset – but you’d be wrong.

According to legal experts, police have wide-ranging powers to search mobile phones providing they have a “reasonable suspicion” that a crime may have been committed. Once inside a handset, they could well stumble across other evidence, which could also be used in court.

“The baseline rule has to be that there is a reasonable suspicion that an offence has been committed for a phone to be inspected and to do an on-the-spot search,” said Tracey Stretton, legal consultant for data-recovery specialist Kroll Ontrack. “If you see a man after a car accident, you wouldn’t need a warrant because you could have a reasonable suspicion that a traffic offence had been committed.

“If you’re looking into one crime and find something else on the phone, then I guess the police would follow that line of inquiry. They wouldn’t stop to get a warrant because they now have suspicion of a further offence.”

According to analysts, the police are also instructed to take the SIMs out of phones upon seizure to ensure suspects can’t call the phone and remotely wipe data or delete incriminating images. The standard operating procedure is evolving, but if any information is stored in a handset it may be used as evidence against you.

“Location information is prime, for both the prosecution and the defence. If you can prove that someone was at a particular location that’s very important,” said Ridley. “If a handset has GPS, then the information stored on the device is more accurate than using cell tower information, which has been used for some time. A lot of people will use GPS, and that information also includes a time stamp, so you can say with a high degree of accuracy that at this time he was here.”

The phone can not only locate where you have been but also what you were doing at the time, which is how the police can tell if a motorist was making a call at the time of a crash.

So much information leaks off the handset and onto third-party hardware that it’s almost impossible to lock down potentially incriminating data.

“If we’re talking smartphones, most would be synced to a central server,” said Robert Winter, chief engineer at Kroll Ontrack. “If you have deleted data on your mobile device, there should be a copy of a file or message on your sync server, whether that’s from your IT department if you’re a BlackBerry user, or you’re syncing an iPhone through iTunes, which should hold a backup of the actual data.”

Messages are routinely used as evidence that a suspect has organised
a drugs drop or been involved in a conspiracy. Ripley’s company has also been involved in cases where either authorities or employers wanted to know when someone had been making VoIP calls.

What the police can learn from your smartphone | Security | Features | PC Pro http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/3686...#ixzz1vGI6FxOj