Privacy lost: UK Police are Accessing Phone Data Without a Warrant

“…police are doing it at a massive scale without warrants, without informing or asking people, without any regulation, without any clear legal basis…” – Millie Graham Wood, Privacy International

This is what is happening right now in the United Kingdom. Police have been using technology to do just that in the name of solving a crime but without any checks and balances, without a protocol for deletion of data after a crime is solved, and no independent oversight to ensure citizens are protected as their personal information is given over indefinitely.

Privacy International

Security International have today distributed another report analyzing innovation UK police powers are covertly conveying, which empowers them to download the entirety of the substance and information from individuals’ telephones. ‘Computerized Stop and search: how the UK police can subtly download everything from your cell phone’ depends on Freedom of Information solicitations to 47 police powers across the UK about their utilization of such ‘cell phone extraction’ advancements.

For more than six years police powers all through the UK have subtly been conveying exceptionally meddling innovation that permits them to accumulate tremendous measures of information on people in the UK, including those sentenced for no wrongdoing, witnesses and casualties. Contracting with famous organizations, for example, Cellebrite, UK police powers can utilize modern instruments to take all information from your telephone, including stowed away and erased information. This incorporates information about your companions, family and partners.

Protection International have uncovered a conceivably unlawful system working with powers who are confounded with regards to the legitimate reason for the innovation they are utilizing. The police are acting without clear shields for general society, and no autonomous oversight to recognize misuse and abuse of touchy individual data. Found in the light of progressing issues of separation inside the criminal equity framework, this presents a genuine aim for concern.

Information can be taken from casualties, witnesses and suspects without educating them. With no unmistakable approaches or direction on the utilization of this innovation, people are uninformed of their lawful rights as far as:

Regardless of whether information is possibly taken when essential and proportionate;

Getting the police to erase this information when there is no legitimate motivation to hold it, especially in case they are guiltless of any wrongdoing;

Guaranteeing information is held safely to forestall openness of their own information because of loss of records, abuse or security break.

Key measurements:

26 out of 47 police powers (55%) that we submitted Freedom of Information solicitations to conceded they are utilizing cell phone extraction innovation.

Out of the leftover 21 police powers (45%):

Eight police powers (17%) have tested or plan to preliminary this innovation

Thirteen police powers (28%) either neglected to react to our inquiries or expressed they hold no data on the utilization of this innovation

Key proposals from our report:

Security International’s report ‘Advanced Stop and Search’ incorporates eleven key proposals including:

There should be an earnest free survey into this boundless, nosy yet mysterious practice;

There ought to be a necessity for police to acquire a warrant for looking through the substance of a cell phone, given based on sensible doubt;

The Home Office should distribute direction for general society, with respect to their privileges assuming the police need to look through their cell phone.

Millie Graham Wood, Solicitor, Privacy International, said:

“You could look through an individual, and their whole home, and never observe to be anyplace close as much data as possible from looking through their telephone. However the police can take information from your telephone without your assent, without your insight and without a warrant. It is upsetting that the police have a profoundly draconian force, working covertly, with no responsibility to the general population. Given the difficult issues we actually face in the UK with prejudicial policing, we need to critically address how this new outskirts of policing may be excessively and unreasonably affecting on minority ethnic gatherings, political demonstrators, ecological activists and numerous different gatherings that can end up targeted of the police.

The police are constantly neglecting to be straightforward with the huge number of individuals whose telephones they are subtly downloading information from. A prompt autonomous audit into this training ought to be started by the Home Office and College of Policing, with inescapable interview with people in general, to track down the right equilibrium of forces for the police and assurances for general society. Let’s get straight to the point – right now, the police have all the force and people in general have no securities.”

David Lammy, MP for Tottenham and creator of the 2017 Lammy Review into the treatment of, and results for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic people in the criminal equity framework, said of Privacy International’s report:

“The absence of straightforwardness around new policing instruments, for example, cell phone extraction is a genuine purpose for concern. There are no records, no measurements, no shields, no oversight and no reasonable assertion of the rights that residents have if their cell phone is seized and looked by the police.

My Review of our criminal equity framework found that people from ethnic minority foundations actually face predisposition in pieces of our equity framework, and it is simply because we have straightforwardness and information assortment for everything from pause and search episodes to crown court condemning choices that these differences are uncovered and we can consider people with great influence responsible. Without the assortment and review of information about the utilization of cell phone extraction powers investigation will be outlandish.

Given the delicate nature and abundance of data put away on our cell phones there is critical danger of misuse and for cognizant or oblivious inclination to turn into a factor without autonomous investigation and without viable legitimate shields.

We endow such a lot of individual data to our telephones that the police having the ability to download each message and photograph we have sent or gotten with no rights and assurances is one more stressing illustration of guidelines not staying aware of advances in innovation.”

Privacy lost (no warrants necessary)

The information that U.K. police are extracting from cell phones includes anything and everything – photos, chat history, emails, call logs including locations and contact information for everyone you’ve spoken with, phone passwords, deleted web browsing history, deleted conversations on encrypted apps –  all without a warrant. The privacy lost with extraction doesn’t only affect the owner of the cell phone, it also incriminates anyone that cell phone user ever interacted with.

Their privacy is lost simply by association with someone involved or witness to a crime.

Privacy International, a UK-based privacy rights organization, filed a formal complaint based on the legality of the data extraction practiced by the current police regime with the Information Commissioner’s Office, Home Office, and the Independent Office for Police Conduct. Within the complaint, Privacy International takes a stand for urgent reform of what they call a “totally unregulated, potentially discriminatory and unlawful” practice.

The campaign group also issued Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to 47 police offices across the UK. The FOIA requests are available for the public to request information on federal agencies that is not publicly available. Through these requests, Privacy International learned what police are extracting from phones without a warrant. The deleted messages can be recovered because the messages are not really taken off the phone’s internal memory.

On April 26, 2018, Privacy International formally complained to UK Information Commissioner that the practice is illegal and called for reforms on this unregulated and potentially discriminatory cell phone data extraction practice.

How the data extraction works

Remember a few months ago when news broke that an Israeli company could crack any phone?

Here was a headline from February 2018:

Now fast forward to today…

The technology that enables this data extraction comes from the Israeli company Cellebrite. With this breakthrough technology – and the apparent legal green light – police are now extracting information from the phones of suspects, witnesses and even victims of a crime.

Here’s how that works:

As you can see, this simple device can suck up everything on your phone.

Unfortunately, the UK Police have no clear protocol for deleting the data they extract. Even worse, they can begin extracting the data from an individual at the moment of arrest, whether they are guilty of the crime or not. Errors are inevitable in the fact-finding process, but this time the stakes are higher with reams of incriminating data easily at the fingertips of authorities (and their partners).

With such a powerful tool for data extraction, we can likely assume this is being used by authorities around the world. And despite reassurance from Apple or Android, it appears that anything on our phones is now accessible, even you are using encrypted messaging apps like Signal.

With this in mind, perhaps it is time to give up the “smart phone” in exchange for an older model that does better with privacy. Of course, the convenience factor would be an issue for most people.

Legal in the US?

This practice would likely require a warrant in the United States. However, evidence suggests that while the U.S. may require warrants for such a search, the government can get around this by hiding how police got their information to investigate suspects – whether illegal or legal.

The use of the Stingray device comes to mind, which authorities have used for warrantless cell phone surveillance.

Back in the UK, the potential for abuses runs high with a system of intrusive surveillance without the proper checks and balances.

Meanwhile, British police are defending their practice by referencing legislation which they believe justifies warrantless data extraction.

PACE act

The Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) is the legislation that the UK Metropolitan Police argue supports their mobile data extraction practices. Here is their justification for these practices:

A victim is always at the heart of an investigation, and in the majority of cases permission will be sought to obtain data from devices such as mobile phones. The officer using the kiosk will then extract only very specific data.

There will, however, be occasions where consent cannot be obtained. For example, where a witness has filmed a murder on their mobile phone but refuses to co-operate with police; or where a victim of domestic abuse does not wish to assist police. Under these circumstances, it may be possible for police to use their powers under PACE to seize and examine this information.

According to the former Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable, Sir Peter Fahy, seeking a warrant every time that police want to search a phone was “just not practical”.

In other words, practicality trumps your right to privacy.

Flashback: UK Snooper’s Charter

And as just a brief reminder, let us not forget about the infamous Investigatory Powers Act – aka the Snooper’s Charter. In late 2016, the bill became law forcing UK web and phone companies to collect users’ browsing history. What was dubbed “world-leading legislation” that provided “unprecedented transparency and substantial privacy protection”, privacy advocates feared it would lead the world closer to authoritarian regimes justifying their own mass surveillance practices. Under the law, your browsing history is stored for 12 months and accessible by many different agencies (without a warrant).

Those living in the UK would be wise to use a UK VPN to encrypt and anonymize your online activity, as well as other privacy tools.

So the current practices of warrantless data extraction using the Cellebrite device perfectly align with the bigger trend. Privacy in the UK is lost – protect yourself accordingly.

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