Metadata slurp warrant typo sends cops barging into the wrong house The Interception of Communications Commissioner's Office (IOCCO) half-yearly report revealed 17 serious errors committed by British authorities using interception powers, including one which lead to an innocent citizen's home being raided after the police mistyped a suspect's email address. In addition to whistleblower …
Yes we should be double checking, and have a second set of eyeballs on everything.
But one typo in how many pieces of Police work? That's not unacceptable.
What's MUCH more important is how they responded *after* realising the error. Did they go back and return the PCs with an apology, was said apology accepted?
True, typos happen, but the system should have safe guards so that one typo doesn't result in an innocent person have police break into their house, restrain them and take their property. I mean an apology is all well and good, but there were probably a lot of personal details on those computers they seized and scanned the contents of, not to mention the trauma of a full on police raid of your house
@SolidSquid
I think we have to accept that occasionally these errors will creep through, yes they should be looking at why it wasn't caught and applying sensible approaches to minimise repeats.
I'm interested to know why it wasn't copied digitally - presumably a form that has to be filled out with a quill?
I did also suggest that it was important that the apology was accepted - for me that would include repairs to the house, and damages.
"[..] not to mention the trauma of a full on police raid of your house"
It is surprising if the named person wasn't also arrested. In any case they now have an entry on the Police's "soft intelligence" database that will probabaly show up if they apply for any clearance like the ECRB. Come any sex crime in their area and they will probably be included as suspects.
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If the police enter a premises (whether or not by force) that they have no lawful right to enter then they are liable for any damage caused. If they fail to ante up the money willingly, then you are entitled to sue them for the damages plus the cost of the court action. Having a search warrant for the wrong address is not an excuse in law since the warrant will be invalid (having been based on incorrect information).
If you infringe the law by mistake, you will have still have infringed the law and the police can take appropriate action against you. The police are not above the law (regardless of what some of them think) so the same rules apply to them.
Extract from https://netpol.org/2014/06/12/police-raids:
If the wrong premises are searched by mistake, the PACE Codes of Practice, Code B, says that “everything possible should be done at the earliest opportunity to allay any sense of grievance” and there should “normally be a strong presumption in favour of paying compensation”.
When you say "associated with a case" what I assume you actually mean is that the person who's property is being searched must be a bona fide suspect in a case. Otherwise the police could search anyone's home based on a case that is occurring 50 miles away that has nothing to do with the person in question.
Also the police using evidence that they gained illegally is the sort of things that makes judges look very dubious. More than a few cases have been thrown out because the police went too far trying to get a conviction. The judges see themselves as the fulcrum of the law's balance, and most of them (although sadly not all) try very hard to discharge the responsibilities this entails in the full.
"Otherwise the police could search anyone's home based on a case that is occurring 50 miles away that has nothing to do with the person in question."
Isn't that basically what "fishing expeditions" are about? Investigation going badly in terms of finding any evidence for unsupported allegations against someone. Then start arresting and searching the PCs of anyone who is thought to be associated with the principle suspect.
IANAL but the abused process of guilt by association only seems to require an arrest on an officer's claim of "suspicion of conspiracy to....". IIRC The arrest automatically gives the police the right to search the person's home or any other place they frequent.
"Otherwise the police could search anyone's home based on a case that is occurring 50 miles away that has nothing to do with the person in question."
That was one of the concerns when the law was introduced = the "Lord Lucan" strategy.
Every officer could have a warrant for "anyone/anywhere" on the theory that since they didn't know who/where was involved in the Lord Lucan murder the warrant must apply everywhere and to everyone.
Remember this is a force that used suspect is a "black youth in London" as a justification that their stop and searches weren't random but were targeted on those fitting a description.
I hear the argument about naming and shaming discouraging self-reporting. But if self-reporting is mandatory encouragement and discouragement are irrelevant.
What is relevant is that the police raid is unlikely to have been invisible to the neighbours so in effect an innocent party has been been named and shamed. Any effective apology would have to have been a public one in which case the authority responsible must have already outed themselves - and if they didn't they deserved to have been held to public account here.
In my view it's yet another argument for requiring judicial warrants with mandatory reporting of outcomes back to the granter. The possibility of having to report back to a magistrate or judge that they have issued a warrant against the wrong person should concentrate the mind.
"In my view it's yet another argument for requiring judicial warrants with mandatory reporting of outcomes back to the granter. The possibility of having to report back to a magistrate or judge that they have issued a warrant against the wrong person should concentrate the mind."
I'd like to see that too, but the authorities already have the option of being accountable, yet they routinely choose to be unaccountable. The folks making the laws have gone to considerable effort to ensure this is possible, so I don't see any reasonable hope for that kind of mandatory accountablity happening.
Going by the old "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" mantra that the pro-surveillance bods like to trot out, it's clear that they have a lot of hide.
> the examination provided no evidence that the equipment's owner had any connection with the social media network through which the victim was being contacted – and obviously provided no evidence that the owner had ever been in contact with the victim.
How many years in the clink did this person get? Was he charged with wasting police time as well?
Not that I don't trust our fine policemen and women... just like back in the days when they were always so careful not to assume that because you were Irish and Catholic... err, never mind.
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