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That's just it. There's already a frontend for the police to use that gives them access to all the data for a single phone number, sans warrant. Does that same
by dTal 8y ago
That's just it. There's already a frontend for the police to use that gives them access to all the data for a single phone number, sans warrant. Does that same frontend allow them to perform arbitrary queries across the entire dataset?. If not, then pursuing this lead would involve filling out forms and writing letters to telcos, possibly even obtaining warrants (unlike the usual process), and they probably wouldn't bother.
Incidentally, the ability to perform unrestricted arbitrary queries without a warrant across the entire phone-location dataset is a fairly horrifying amount of power for the police to have. But I suppose legally that ship has sailed with RIPA, and now it's just a question of the fine details of the implementation.
- multjoy 8y agoNo. Getting a request approved is a nightmare. It's literally easier to get a search warrant from the courts than it is persuading police SPOCs to approve your RIPA request. The gatekeeping is fearsome. They take their duties incredibly seriously.
- dTal 8y agoI'm not quite sure what your 'no' is specifically in reference to. I'm also not sure what a SPOC is, and I'm not familiar with the details of the process. But The Guardian reported in 2014 that "EE, Vodafone and Three give police mobile call records at click of a mouse", and in 2015 that "UK police requests to access phone calls or emails are granted 93% of the time", with rejection rates varying wildly by county from as high as 28% to as low as 0.1%. So it doesn't seem to be as hard as you're making out, unless things have changed wildly in the last few years. May I ask your sources? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/10/automatic-police-access-customers-mobile-phone-records-like-cash-machine-ripa-three-ee-vodafone https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/10/automatic-poli... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/01/police-request-access-phone-calls-emails-granted-every-two-minutes https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/01/police-request...
- angry_octet 8y agoSPOC = single point of contact The filtering isn't about civil liberties (although keeping councils out seems sensible) but rate limiting requests via paperwork, so only important ones get done.
- multjoy 8y agoWhat's your source for that?
- multjoy 8y agoI'm a police officer who routinely uses communications data in investigations.