Big Brother wants 7 years data if you are a rape victim

[OldQueen1969]

www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jun/17/police-in-england-and-wales-dropping-inquiries-when-victims-refuse-to-hand-in-phones

Thought this might be of interest.

I don't think it's right or necessary.

It's another way to shame sex workers if they are unfortunate enough to get raped.

No plan. That’s not right.

They take your phone and you don’t get it back for months. So you have to buy a new phone

It happened to a friend of mine

If I were raped there is no way on God's earth I would ever report it.

Although the justice system is actually very lenient with women. Especially traumatised women
This isn't true, the justice system is overly harsh on traumatised women.
The system is completely biased towards the rapist. I would hazard a guess that the going back 7 years would be to find something/anything to discredit the victim.

I feel like the actual issues isn't being found of other crimes but that any conversation you have had with you rapist will be used against you, sometimes rape isn't violent and forced its coercive and just wears you down until you don't care if it happens you just want it over, I was raped in an alley by a boy walking me home at the time afterwards I said to a male friend about it and he said that if I hadn't screamed bloody murder and fought him off of me that it wasn't rape, and I believed him and kept talking to the guy politely for a couple weeks after until I couldn't bear it anymore and realised that my male friend was wrong, now if I had reported it and the police took my phone do you think they'd believe me or do you think they'd use the fact that I was still talking to him as 'proof' that I wasn't raped?

That's a big gamble centered on the opinions and bias of whoever is going through my phone deciding if I'm lying or telling the truth.

The police still have my phone. They took it 8 years ago.
Held against me in court:
I was on antidepressants
I had an abortion
I was a prostitute
I had photos of myself dressed up for a night out on my phone
I'm tall (so could have fought harder)

Little brown dog, your police must be way behind mine technologically if they can’t just copy the phones data in a few minutes and hand it back to you.

This happens in domestic abuse too. My friend had to flee with her son to a womens refuge - the only place was in a different region. Then she had to hand her phone over as did her son. She had no income and was paying for a phone she couldnt use to access support, services etc. Her son got very isolated as he couldnt remain in contact with friends. The perpatrator is in prison now.

Institute
“This isn't true, the justice system is overly harsh on traumatised women.”

The system is completely biased towards the rapist.

You’ve misunderstood. I was replying regarding other crimes. The justice system is biased towards being lenient when the woman is the criminal. If you look at any crime from theft to drugs to assault to murder, women regularly avoid custodial sentences when men who have done the same crime get them. And in cases where both men and women doing the same crime get a custodial sentence, the woman usually gets a shorter sentence than the man.

That is different from the fact that rape convictions are very hard to get which doesn’t do justice to women when they are the victim. However, the system is still biased against men and favour women because in the U.K. (unlike other more progressive countries) female rape is not recognised legally as rape, but as a lesser sexual assault. So while it is very hard to convict a man of rape, it is impossible to convict a woman of rape due to the technicality of the UK rape laws wording.

There's quite a big case in the news right now about a girl who made repeated false claims of rape against separate men.

Part of the evidence against her is her phone pinging (( she claimed she'd been abducted on one occasion )) showing she'd been in an entirely different location to where she claimed.......There's a lot of evidence on phones, I think it's fair that both are handed in.

@user1972548274

It's very unfortunate that when a crime happens and is investigated, it doesn't just blow open the life of the accused, it blows open the life of the victim. That is part of the larger tragedy of crime.

No. That is a choice we make as a society.

If you are burgled or mugged or scammed, do you have to hand over your entire medical records, emails, phone data, etc etc so the police can assess whether you might have concocted the whole thing?

In a just and enlightened society, for example, rape victims would not have to disclose their entire medical records so the defence barrister could try to paint a picture of them as "mentally unstable" and therefore not "credible" as a witness. Evidence of vulnerability and trauma would not be used against victims; we would know that rapists target the vulnerable who are viewed as "not credible" and how trauma manifests.

And trials would not be about which story teller is best at convincing a bunch of ignorant randomers who to feel sorry for.

Some of the ignorant black and white thinking on this subject from some posters is quite remarkable. But explains why rape is allowed to go unchecked in our society.

Yes, it is the case in other crimes that police delve into people's personal business.

Probably not if you report your car stolen. But if you are involved in domestic assaults, family courts, murder of various kinds, financial shenanigans, prostitution - all of these kinds of crimes can involve looking into people's personal relationships, financial problems, bad habits, etc.

Rape is a serious crime, and often the people involved have some kind of personal connection. Often that is relevant to the situation, or even if it isn't the accused argues that it is.

The right of an accused person to defend themselves is a cornerstone of our justice system. The police and prosecution don't have the option of simply ignoring this.

Are you seriously suggesting that when investigating a serious crime the police can avoid asking for information that would upset people?

Thank you for sharing that vampirethriller.

I hope you don't mind me repeating it as it seems some posters may have missed it:

'The police still have my phone. They took it 8 years ago.
Held against me in court:
I was on antidepressants
I had an abortion
I was a prostitute
I had photos of myself dressed up for a night out on my phone
I'm tall (so could have fought harder)'

'Probably not if you report your car stolen. But if you are involved in domestic assaults, family courts, murder of various kinds, financial shenanigans, prostitution - all of these kinds of crimes can involve looking into people's personal relationships, financial problems, bad habits, etc.'

Why is prostitution on this list? It's not illegal in the UK under certain circs.

Seems especially crass coming after vampirethriller's post.

Can you give some insight into why you have listed prostitution as a crime comparable to rape or murder when it's not even a crime in the first place?

@ShinyFootball

Thank you for sharing that vampirethriller.

I hope you don't mind me repeating it as it seems some posters may have missed it:

'The police still have my phone. They took it 8 years ago.
Held against me in court:
I was on antidepressants
I had an abortion
I was a prostitute
I had photos of myself dressed up for a night out on my phone
I'm tall (so could have fought harder)'

You realise it's possible to think this kind of thing is wrong but also see that phones could potentially contain relevant information?

What do you think of the case mentioned where the person's phone showed she wasn't where she said she was?

If the police can't look at the victim's phone, are you ok with saying they also can't look at the accused's phone? To show for example that they weren't where they said they were?

So long as defendants have a right to make a defence, there is a certain amount of leeway required to let them do that and they need access to certain kinds of information. Otherwise you have the kind of situation you see in certain (not very nice) places where the defendant might be able to make a defence, but is given no right to ask for any information or help to do so.

If your issue is with the kinds of arguments that are effective in court, that's not the same issue as how the police and the defence can access information.

Well you didn't say it was wrong when she posted it did you.

And I haven't seen anyone on the thread say that phones cannot be used under any circs.

Show a bit of empathy and don't move the goalposts.

@ShinyFootball

'Probably not if you report your car stolen. But if you are involved in domestic assaults, family courts, murder of various kinds, financial shenanigans, prostitution - all of these kinds of crimes can involve looking into people's personal relationships, financial problems, bad habits, etc.'

Why is prostitution on this list? It's not illegal in the UK under certain circs.

Seems especially crass coming after vampirethriller's post.

Can you give some insight into why you have listed prostitution as a crime comparable to rape or murder when it's not even a crime in the first place?

I'm starting to wonder if you aren't being disingenuous here. Why not address the point of the discussion?

I listed prostitution because someone being accused of accessing a prostitute, or being a prostitute, may well feel that the police are asking personal or embarrassing questions, or revealing things that affect their job, their family life, etc. As with the other things I listed.

This is a discussion about the legal system. Maybe try telling people how you would like to allow investigations of crimes where relevant information for both the prosecution and defence might be contained on a people's phones, without having access to people's phones?

Ok but if your whole argument is based around the phones location being accessed why do they want 7 years worth of data?

I think I know why, to go back and find any evidence of promiscuity, casual sex, enjoyment of any kind of kinky porn or sex ect. It is all about finding a way to blame the victim for what happened to them or somehow imply that they actually wanted it. That is the problem with the system.

I'm not being disingenuous why do you say that?

Your answer is nonsensical. It does not address what you wrote at all, which was:

'Probably not if you report your car stolen. But if you are involved in domestic assaults, family courts, murder of various kinds, financial shenanigans, prostitution - all of these kinds of crimes can involve looking into people's personal relationships, financial problems, bad habits, etc.'.

Maybe you are projecting with this disingenuous thing?

Honestly, we don't need GPS data to prove a victim was where she said she was. What if she had mobile data turned off when it happened? Like anyone on a low income would? Or if she'd run out of phone credit?
All the stuff in a mobile phone, it could help to secure a conviction, but claiming it's necessary or needed is a fallacy because that implies that, before the amazing magical smartphones became mass consumer goods, no rapes were ever prosecuted.
They were. Better than they are now. Presumably because we had more funding for the police and therefore more forensic psychologists to talk to suspects and victims, but I'm going out on a limb there.
The fact rape prosecutions are at an all-time low goes to show that the police are getting far too bogged down in unnecessary crap like whether a woman has a Tinder account or ever Googled "what the fuck even is a rape fantasy" or whether she's got erotic romance in her Kindle account, and not enough time actually investigating crime.
It's as stupid as the fact that poor 17-year-old's pair of knickers were used to get a rapist acquitted in County Cork a couple of years ago.

A phone is a valuable item, some of them cost a lot of money, and they devalue quite quickly, so the police keeping someone's phone means the victim has to get another phone for day-to-day use in the interim, losing money as their proper phone depreciates in value, possibly paying a phone plan for their proper phone, and having had to shell out on another phone especially if they need it for work.

Confiscating someone's phone when they report a rape smacks of a paternalistic schooldays attitude where all rape victims, regardless of age, are incorrigible children.

On a side note, this all seems like a reason to keep an old phone around to hand in instead, and to change phone numbers/providers once every couple of years like we all used to in the Nokia 3210 days.

You can bet that's what the rapists will be doing when they plan these sort of crimes. Which basically invalidates the use of any given phone as "evidence" for anything at all.

Plan, with respect, your posts show a lack of knowledge of the law in the UK:

1. There are 3 jurisdictions in the UK, England & Wales, Scotland & Northern Ireland.
2. You are correct that in England & Wales women cannot be accused of rape as rape rape is penetration by a penis. They can, and have been, charged with assault by penetration which carries the same penalties as rape though women are far less likely to commit sexual assaults & when they do, their victim is more likely to be a woman.
3. Women are held to a far higher standard then men and are often imprisoned for crimes for which men usually receive a community disposal; not having a TV licence for example
4. Anyone who has attended a rape trial knows exactly what happens to women and it's obscene. As others have indicated, the minutiae of their lives are exposed, not just the rape but any other sexual or other behaviour which deviates from the image of the perfect innocent victim.

But if you are involved in domestic assaults, family courts, murder of various kinds, financial shenanigans, prostitution - all of these kinds of crimes can involve looking into people's personal relationships, financial problems, bad habits, etc.'

Erm, being involved in family court or a prostitute are not crimes.

PlanDeRaccordement

Don’t “lol” me like that you patronising twerp.

I’m saying I don’t have access to any of the data. That was all. You really need to step back on your aggression.

@BlackBucketOfCheese

PlanDeRaccordement

Don’t “lol” me like that you patronising twerp.

I’m saying I don’t have access to any of the data. That was all. You really need to step back on your aggression.

BlackBucketofCheese. You asked a question:”What if you don’t have it? I don’t have my phones for the last 7 years, I don’t even have the same phone number or email accounts.”

And I answered your question according to the procedures that I’m familiar with in a polite and friendly manner as to the fact that the police can access your data even if you do not have it in your possession. And yet you respond with name calling.

@Bodynegative

Plan, with respect, your posts show a lack of knowledge of the law in the UK: 1) There are 3 jurisdictions in the UK, England & Wales, Scotland & Northern Ireland. 2) You are correct that in England & Wales women cannot be accused of rape as rape rape is penetration by a penis. They can, and have been, charged with assault by penetration which carries the same penalties as rape though women are far less likely to commit sexual assaults & when they do, their victim is more likely to be a woman. 3) Women are held to a far higher standard then men and are often imprisoned for crimes for which men usually receive a community disposal; not having a TV licence for example 3) Anyone who has attended a rape trial knows exactly what happens to women and it's obscene. As others have indicated, the minutiae of their lives are exposed, not just the rape but any other sexual or other behaviour which deviates from the image of the perfect innocent victim.

Well, yes I am not very familiar with U.K. law or the current police procedures. Which is why I expressed surprise that your police have to physically keep your phones for months at a time when it is a simple technical procedure to copy all the data and hand the phone back to its owner.

Respectfully, you are wrong on #2. Multiple studies have shown the exact opposite.
library.college.police.uk/docs/hofindings/r10.pdf
“A higher proportion of female offenders are cautioned for serious offences”
“The available evidence suggests that women are less likely than men to be remanded in custody than men.”
“There are differences in the sentences that men and women receive, but overall, women seem more likely to receive lenient sentences than men. This is so even when previous convictions are taken into consideration.”
To start. If interested on further reading I am happy to post links to more studies.

On #3, yes, but your point agrees with what I have said about rape trials and the difficulty in convicting rapists. So not sure why you are thinking I have said otherwise? I think you are confusing what the police do with the data versus what the defence barrister might do with the data if they succeed in gaining it through discovery? Everything you mention about the aspects of women’s lives being held to a standard are what the defence barrister does, who works for the accused rapist. Not what the police do.

Honestly, we don't need GPS data to prove a victim was where she said she was. What if she had mobile data turned off when it happened? Like anyone on a low income would? Or if she'd run out of phone credit?

Doesn’t matter. You can still track a cell phone even if it is turned off, out of charge, out of credit, etc. It’s saved women’s lives who have been kidnapped and being hauled away in the boot of a car. It’s caught rapists and murderers by proving they were on the scene of a rape or murder by comparing their phones data to the victims phones data.
Even a smart watch or Fitbit can be used to solve crimes.