Proposed amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill would empower police to access individuals' online data, including banking and messaging services, without requiring court orders. These changes allow senior officers to authorize direct access to personal data from seized mobile devices and cloud storage, raising concerns from civil liberties advocates. Critics argue this shift undermines individual privacy and lacks necessary judicial oversight, exemplified by comments from experts calling for an overhaul of current frameworks governing police access to digital information before such radical changes are enacted.
Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, said the amendments would give police access to all information stored by every app on a phone, including information from dating apps, banking apps and messaging services.
The police cannot be allowed to mark their own homework when it comes to using such intrusive powers. The whole regime regarding seizures of devices needs an overhaul to ensure that, at the very least, there must be sign-off by an independent judge or judicial commissioner.
Collection
[
|
...
]