UK Police Accessed Civilian Data For Fun and Profit, Says Report (vice.com) 71
An anonymous reader writes from a report via Motherboard: A report from activist group Big Brother Watch surfaced that says more than 800 U.K. police staff inappropriately accessed personal information between June 2011 and December 2015. Motherboard reports: "The report says some police staff used their access to a growing trove of police data, which includes personal information on civilians, for entertainment and personal and financial gain. In several notable incidents, one Metropolitan Police officer found the name of a victim so funny that he attempted to take a photo of the driving license and send it to his friend over Snapchat. A Greater Manchester Police officer tipped someone off that they would be arrested, and one from North Yorkshire Police conducted a check on a vehicle on his phone whilst off-duty. The report also includes incidents of staff distributing other types of police data. Someone from South Wales Police was dismissed after photographing and distributing restricted documents "for personal gain," the report said. Not only was some information not needed for official police work, according to the report, but was shared with third parties outside the police, including some organized crime groups, 877 times. In total, 2,315 incidents of inappropriate access or distribution of data were reported. The majority of incidents, 1,283, ended up with no disciplinary action taking place, while 297 ended in a resignation or dismissal, 258 resulted in a written or verbal warning, and 70 led to a criminal conviction or caution."
No offence intended (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:No offence intended (Score:4, Insightful)
If the average IQ of everyone is 100, it stands to reason that once you factor out the number of freakishly intelligent folks who don't choose to get shot at for less than $40,000 per year, you're at about 80-85, with a few outliers that are saddled with heroic ambition.
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The article is concerning UK officers. Not sure they really get shot all that often and their interactions with the public do seem to be more positive so I would expect more people would be interested in policing over there.
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Not by ordinary law-abiding citizens, no. (Source: am British law-abiding citizen.)
their entire social life is other police officers
I guess the police officer I know must be the one exception, huh?
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UK police are in less danger, but the profession still attracts the wrong type of people. The pay isn't very good. Thugs, racists and other nasty people sign up so they can legally hit people with metal clubs. Just watch footage of them "policing" protests, they can't wait to start cracking skulls and are careful to hide their badge numbers and faces. The police are basically untouchable, juries never convict them so they can and do murder and assault with impunity. At worst they might get kicked out of the
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Recalls this essay
http://theleveller.org/2015/06/yes-your-dad-too/ [theleveller.org]
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I don't see what intelligence has to do with it, unless you mean the ones who got caught. I agree, that wasn't too bright. As far as I can tell from having personally known a few cops, (in the US), they've always accessed the information at their disposal for their own purposes. It's just human nature. They've certainly done it for me when asked. I think the lede here is that there is simply gobs more information for them to play with, and thus misuse.
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You also have to throw out the people who don't leave their mother's basement.
I mean, the kind who do so because they don't know how. Not the kind around here.
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What is the IQ and EQ of an average policeman ?
On average mostly base and no treble.
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one Metropolitan Police officer found the name of a victim so funny that he attempted to take a photo of the driving license and send it to his friend over Snapchat
spared
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At least in the US, some police departments specifically reject hiring people with high IQs.
Re: Citizens... not civilians... (Score:1)
In the police states that modern western nations are devolving into, there is less and less difference between the military and law enforcement. Therefore, the distinction between citizen and civillian is also becoming less important.
Oxford English Dictionary is against you (Score:1)
It offers:
A person who is not a member of a specified profession or group.
with the first usage from 1946
http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/... [oed.com] (probably paywalled)
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The use of the term 'cop' or 'copper' to refer to the police has a number of possible roots. From the Latin 'capere' meaning to catch, perhaps. Maybe from the Dutch 'kapen'. From the French or even Anglo Saxon. There's evidence of the use of the modern form 'cop' meaning to catch in the 1700s and the use of 'copper' as 'one who catches' about the same time. Suggestions that the term has to do with copper buttons or helmets, or that a copper-a-day was the wage of a policeman are fanciful, as are backronyms l
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As in to "cop a feel" or "cop the blame" or even "cop it". The number of common words which started off as acronyms is staggeringly small (if any), so much so that it's very likely correct to instantly dismiss them.
Re:Yes because it is revisionist history. (Score:2)
Ah - the fun of blaming conspiracy theorists when the reality is the mere development of language.
Offering the OED quotes makes the point:
1946 J. Adams From Gags to Riches xiv. 221 Show gals are smarter and keener than most ‘civilians’.
1975 Sci. Amer. Feb. 6/3 The listening public—civilians, we call them—its composers, critics and conductors are indeed fortunate that so many excellent instrumentalists spend so much time practicing and producing music.
1986 New Yorker 17 Mar.
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Police are civilians with no special powers over a citizen.
In the U.S. (generally - it is state level so may vary a bit) there is a distinction:
- Non-police citizens can only arrest for felonies.
- Police can also arrest, or issue citations, for misdemeanors and infractions (such as traffic offences).
Unfortunately, in some states (and to some extent generally, under federal law), modern gun restriction laws, and those pushing expansion of them, are creating, expanding, (and attempting to make
Re:I am Jack's complete lack of surprise. (Score:5, Informative)
Surveillance systems [arstechnica.com] are always abused [cnn.com] in this way. [telesurtv.net]
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"Robust action" (Score:5, Informative)
"Robust action": You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
They take no action in the majority of cases then wonder why people are skeptical of giving them more powers to see what ordinary people are doing.
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No, you idiotic apologist for the surveillance state. This isn't 2,315 complaints. This is 2,315 cases where a complaint would have been found to be true. This is 2,315 cases where some action should have been taken. I a
At least some are being punished (Score:3)
It can be argued that the offence should be taken more seriously, but there's some good news here.
Cause (Score:1)
And some - like doing a lookup of a vehicle while off-duty - might not be mis-use. If a cop sees a vehicle that seems to be involved in a crime, does he/she have to be on duty at a time to look up information?
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Certainly possible and exactly the sort of thing that can be asserted during incident investigation, in which case it wouldn't have been mentioned in the article if that assertion was considered true. But applying realism we know that the two most likely reasons are that the vehicle had a female driver that the policeman liked the look of or that the vehicle made a maneuver that annoyed him but unlike most drivers, who are generally constrained to shouting, swearing and pushing on the horn, he had the optio
2,315 incidents noticed (Score:5, Insightful)
The story seems to suggest that exactly 2,315 incidents happened between June 2011 and December 2015. Wrong: this is the number that were discovered. I would be highly surprised if there were more incidents that no one picked up on. How many more I will not speculate.
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Yes -- my initial reaction to this story was "Is that all?"
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" Hacker sells UK police database on dark web for $500 a pop"
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I'd expect the real number being somewhere between 100 and 1000 times as big. Such incidents are published only in exceptional cases; even if detected, it's in the police force's interest to sweep this under the carpet.
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Correct. And it's hard because guess what? Officers have legitimate access to that database for their cases and looking up information!
I suppose that's why they officers thought they could do it without being detected - because the database was
Why wouldn't off-duty access be allowed? (Score:1)
and one from North Yorkshire Police conducted a check on a vehicle on his phone whilst off-duty
This particular one is meaningless without further info. Could be he was just being a good citizen and investigating a suspicious person, or could be he's abusing his power. In either case, it seems more like a failure in their IT -- they could simply ban unapproved usage, or log it with its justification so its available but not abused.
Only 800 people? (Score:2)
Share you data! (Score:2)
Why won't you share your data? we're the police, the good guys!
Apparently if I don't share my data the terrorists win.
How many terrorists did sharing my data help apprehend? - bulk surveillance is useless for prevention there's just too much of it.
We don't need these reports to know the police and other organisations with access will abuse the data. We have human nature and history to teach us all we need on the subject.
Only share what you absolutely must. The reasons to obfuscate and purposefully g
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Funny name (Score:2)
"one Metropolitan Police officer found the name of a victim so funny that he attempted to take a photo of the driving license and send it to his friend over Snapchat."
Peter Ian Staker?
Tight situation (Score:1)