Brit cops rapped over app that recorded 200k phone calls

[bragr]

This uses some awfully passive language about how the app came to be installed. Did the officers install it themselves from the list of approved apps, or did someone push it down onto a bunch of devices? If the officers installed it themselves, that somewhat discredits the idea the individual police officers had no idea.

[pjc50]

Misconduct involving police is described in the passive voice. The pinnacle of which is "officer-involved shooting".

[quijoteuniv]

This seems all a bit of a joke. They are now pretending they did not know, they apologise and thats it. Not on mayor media either… hopeless

[Zigurd]

Considering the discretion police can exercise, which is in practice far greater than laws would suggest, knowing who the individuals involved in such decisions is even more important. Keeping bad decision makers out of positions of responsibility is crucial to competent policing.

[maerF0x0]

And should be treated as a pretty major policy gap in policing... Officers should not be using BYOD, they work with far to sensitive of data both in the sense of leaking what they're working on (giving privy folks a preview to investigations), but also leaking "customer" (the public's) sensitive data to those without authorization.

[kbutler]

Wondered about "rap" in this context:

From Collins dictionary of British English

""" Rap: 2 (verb) in the sense of reprimand

Definition to rebuke or criticize sharply """

Other interpretations would have been too good to be true.

[jaclaz]

Yep, I expected a link to a TikTok or Youtube video with the officers singing and dancing ...

[badcppdev]

I feel "The Register" specialises in headlines that can be parsed in more than one way.

[a4isms]

US-flavoured English has this type of "rap" as well, as in Raganwald faced the rap for making too many reddit-esque puns on Hacker News. The mods reviewed his rap sheet and determined that permanent expulsion was warranted for this transgression.

I believe both descend from "rap" as a form of rebuke, in one case synonymous with criticism, in the other synonymous with a conviction in a court of law.

[gadders]

It's one of those words that only gets used in headlines to save space. See also "slams".

[ip_addr]

F the police?

[rcme]

The part I'm missing is: why is this bad? I expect police officers to wear body cams, for instance. I automatically assume any interaction I have with a police officer is being recorded. I didn't realize these was an expectation of privacy.

[d1sxeyes]

It’s bad because it discourages “off the record” tips given to police officers.

Not everyone who talks to a police officer is a criminal.

[vorticalbox]

> but instead opted for its revised public sector approach in which it seeks to help entities learn from their mistakes

because "that was naughty don't do it again" has worked out wonderfully so far.

[trebligdivad]

The problem is fines dont work either since it's just one gov dept fining another.

[musha68k]

Maybe someone local could explain to me why “living inside the panopticon” has been so widely accepted?

Is this historically derived from loyal trust in the monarch?

[arcticbull]

Likely the same reason folks in China and Singapore accept a panopticon. It's a safe, comfortable environment. I feel dramatically safer at 2am in Shanghai than I do in any US city. It's not the trade-off I want for myself, but it's understandable - and were I born there, I might even endorse it.

To the extent that the economy is doing well and folks feel like the country is headed in a positive direction they're generally willing to accept an awful lot from the state.

When that inevitably changes though (due to cyclicality), things tend to get spicy.

Don't suspect this has much to do with the King.

[throwawayuk5435]

Panopticon!?

Why do Americans routinely still believe the UK is an exceptional, universal surveillance state?

There were two studies done (in Kings Lynn in Norfolk and in a section of Putney) that are full of mistakes, that US media has picked up as some kind of indication that the UK is down some dark path the same as China.

People believe every residential street has police cameras (not even close to true) or that the _government_ operates "millions" of cameras (not true), or that there's nowhere you can go in the UK where you can't be immediately followed on camera.

Most of the "millions" of cameras in the studies are, like most of the millions of cameras in the USA, pointing from the back of shop out through the glass at the front. If the police want those they have to ask, on foot, to the manager of the store, and the store manager may require them to have a warrant.

See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_the_Unite...

And then ask yourself: how different is it in the USA?

(Throwaway because I am really done with commenting here, but this CCTV misunderstanding always makes me laugh. Here's a tip: the USA is not really very different. (Except that our police aren't armed to the teeth, you don't get nearly shot to death for going to the wrong house while black, and our politicians don't plan to put prisons next to theme parks to score points)

[Silhouette]

It is historically derived from trust in the government, police and security services. High profile failures aside, that trust has mostly been earned and respected for a long time. It doesn't change the principles or deeper dangers of course but it does affect public perception. Most people simply have bigger things to worry about when they believe these tools are usually being employed with good intentions.

[eynsham]

The US has a very different intellectual tradition arising from a deliberate act of rebellion and a fairly static constitution. Many European countries have a history of fascist dictatorship. Britain has neither, so in my view is somewhat lackadaisical about the risks of state power. We’re rightly proud that we didn’t succumb as Italy or Germany did, but of course that means that dictatorship is something that happens to other people or comes from Brussels. It’s true that our electoral democracy is relatively safe (redrawing of constituencies is normal, new ID card requirements are dubiously motivated) but that leaves a lot of scope for far more intrusion with far less constitutional oversight than many other Western liberal states. Notably, there is less scepticism about state power in other democracies where there is a similar lack of scepticism for historical reasons—e.g., France, where the legacy of Vichy is often downplayed relative to the resistance, or Japan, which never really confronted its past.

[anigbrowl]

Look up 'collective action problem'.

[kleiba]

Surrey Police and Sussex Police were given access to the Another Call Recorder app [...] The police officers were themselves unaware that calls would be recorded.

Yeah, I guess that wasn't clear from the name of the app...

[imjonse]

Well, the app name suggests that another call will be recorded.

[Waterluvian]

As an iPhone user in a region where single-consent is the law, are there any convenient ways to record phone calls without extra hardware or jail breaking?

[mnw21cam]

As an android user, same question. The last app I used successfully stopped working after a while, and I got the impression Google did this deliberately.

[mrcheesebreeze]

speaker mode + separate device to record.

Either that or use a computer to do the call and record using software on the computer.

I don't know how the latter is done but I know many companies do that.

[olliej]

I read that wrong and was disappointed there weren't a bunch of "cool" police officers interacting with The Youth.

[cmilton]

One of the downsides to have a device for both personal and business use with no easy way to separate the two.