Re:U.K. Police Have a Message for Crime Victims: Hand over Y...
by mirimir on Wednesday May 01, 2019 @04:14AM
(#19795361)
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.
> “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 prosecutors. And in some cases, devices might not be given back to their owners for weeks or even months.
That sounds a lot like "fishing expeditions".