COPS SPY ON MOBILES
...and they don’t need a warrant
POLICE are accessing people’s personal mobile phone data without getting search warrants.
Suspects, witnesses and even victims are having their private content secretly downloaded.
At least 26 forces in England and Wales are using the new tech to take data without public knowledge.
It allows officers access to messages – even if encrypted – pictures, password, location data, call logs, emails and internet searches.
Technology also downloads data that has been deleted. This includes extracting every photo, not just ones needed for an investigation. Campaign group Privacy International said the practice was quietly rolled out with no public debate.
They say there is “no limit on the volume of data” police could take or rules on when they had to delete it.
The group’s solicitor Millie Graham-Wood said: “The most worrying thing is that this can happen on arrest, even when charges are never even brought.”
Only eight out of the 47 forces contacted said they had guidance about using the technology.
Derbyshire and Wiltshire Police’s guidance allows the downloading of the contents without a suspect’s knowledge. MP Naz Shah, a member of the home affairs select committee, said: “They can download every aspect of your life, but you have no idea what they are going to do with it.”
Former Manchester Police chief constable Sir Peter Fahy said obtaining a warrant each time would be “just not practical”.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “Current legislation allows data to be accessed when there are reasonable grounds to believe it contains evidence in relation to an offence.”