back to article It should be a crime to install spyware on phones, thunders Plaid Cymru MP

Plaid Cymru MP Liz Saville Roberts has tabled a series of amendments to the Policing and Crime Bill which, among other things, could make it illegal to install spyware on someone's phone. Roberts, MP for Dwyfor Meirionnydd* in Wales, is concerned about how new tech and platforms can be misused. Speaking to The Register, she …

  1. JakeMS
    Black Helicopters

    Yes..

    It should be illegal to install spyware on phones, desktop computers, or just about any electronic device.

    That includes you guv!

    Stop trying to put spyware and crap on my devices El Presidente!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Yes..

      Then remove Chrome, if you're using it.... uninstall Android from any phone of yours... and don't install Windows 10, if it's not too late...

      1. JakeMS

        Re: Yes..

        "Then remove Chrome, if you're using it.... uninstall Android from any phone of yours... and don't install Windows 10, if it's not too late..."

        I use SeaMonkey as my web browser and email client.

        I currently do not have an Android device (mine bricked itself a couple of months ago and I couldn't unbrick it :-/ - just turned it on and poof encryption failed or some other crap..) not got around to buying a new one yet, back on an old Nokia for now (Pre-Smartphone Nokia!))

        I use GNU/Linux Fedora 23 and I have not had Windows installed at all on any of my PCs since 2006 (I started using Linux in 2003 however).

        My emails are hosted on my own personal dedicated server which I setup and configured.

        How'd I do?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Black Helicopters

          Re: Yes..

          How'd I do?

          It's ok, we're monitoring all your traffic at ISP level.

          1. JakeMS

            Re: Yes..

            VPN :-P.

        2. DiViDeD
          Joke

          Re: Yes..

          Hmmmmm.. Pre Smartphone Nokia, SeaMonkey, GNU/Linux Fedora, no windows, dedicated email server....

          You did amazingly well. And those socks look GREAT with those sandals too!

    2. Adam 52 Silver badge

      Re: Yes..

      It is. Computer Misuse Act:

      "A person is guilty of an offence if—

      (a)he causes a computer to perform any function with intent to secure access to any program or *data* held in any computer"

      Unless that's one of the provisions that never got implemented.

      All we need is a Police force prepared to investigate and the CPS to prosecute. Adding more laws won't change the fact that the Police and CPS are too scared to go after, for example, Google and Microsoft.

  2. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

    So...

    The current heap of confusing and possibly contradictory laws is hard for police forces to implement. Instead of doing something useful like issuing guidelines on implementation, lets add several more poorly thought-out laws to the top of the heap and hope the whole thing doesn't come crashing down.

    1. nijam Silver badge

      Re: So...

      > let's add several more poorly thought-out laws to the top of the heap and hope the whole thing doesn't come crashing down.

      Too late, I'm afraid, it's already happened. (The "add several", "poorly thought-out", and "hope", that is. Not the "crashing down" part, yet.)

      Sometimes I think legislators and lawyers don't even realise that Goedel's theorem implies you can't close all the loopholes. So we end up (to use a maritime analogy) with barnacles encrusted upon barnacles, while the hull has long since rotted away.

  3. AMBxx Silver badge
    Joke

    Easier said than done

    Sounds like we'd have to ban Windows Phone, Android and iOS.

    Is he a shrill for Blackberry?

    1. getHandle

      Re: Easier said than done

      He's a bit shrill, but I don't think it's because of Blackberry... (Shill, perchance?)

  4. theModge

    At least she's thinking sensibly about the problems

    Which is more than can be said for the home secretary. I'm not sure I agree with her conclusions - they seem to broad and easily abused - but at the very least she is thinking about it.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Google play store

    So OEMs won't be able to install Google play store? Nice.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I believe in free speech, but...

    Will all politicians do the world a favor and go play Space Hoppers in a mine field.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I believe in free speech, but...

      That is too good for them.

  7. Cynic_999

    The police love new, badly thought-out laws, because they can be twisted so easily to target activities that they were never intended to cover, while usually being far too difficult to find out who is carrying out the activities that the law was actually designed to prevent.

    So while the pervert will be careful to cover his tracks after loading some malware onto someone's laptop so that it streams its webcam to him, the concerned relative who puts a spycam in a room at a care home to see who is abusing or stealing from their elderly mother will get serious jail time.

    1. Adam 52 Silver badge

      No argument starting "The Police Police love" is likely to be accurate. In general most rank and file work to a "are they doing a bad thing and if so is it illegal" mindset. Some don't, some apply the law as rigidly as they can, but they are a tiny minority.

      Police management layers have targets set by politicians and they will look, or even ask for new, laws.

      And then you get wierdness introduced by judges "hard cases make bad law" like viewing images being equivalent to creating them or plastic toy swords being knives because they have blades.

  8. VinceH

    Please may we have tracking cookies classified as spyware?

  9. Christoph

    Multiple photos

    "outlaw the taking of “multiple [two or more] images of an individual unless it is in the public interest to do so”"

    The way to get a good photo of someone is to take lots of photos and delete the duff ones. This applied even with film cameras. With digital photos it's ridiculous to only take a single photo of a subject.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Multiple photos

      People working with a view camera, or Cartier-Bresson, may not agree with you. It was the fashion photographer of the 1970s who started to shoot like a mad to take a single good image - especially when motorized film winders became available.

      Others just learn when it's the right time to release the shutter - even with a digital camera. It also makes you more "stealthy".

      Anyway, even a single photo can be use for harassment or other unlawful purposes.

      1. Christoph

        Re: Multiple photos

        That's fine if you are a top professional photographer who spends their career developing that skill.

        The enormous majority of photos are taken by amateur photographers, or by people with a camera on their mobile who don't even consider themselves any kind of photographer.

        They don't conceivably have time or need to develop that kind of expertise. Why should they?

        Do you really think that even a top expert can stroll out and get a perfect shot every time?

  10. veti Silver badge

    Agenda?

    I would have thought the strange provisions about photography were the bigger story here.

    Why is El Reg leading with "spyware"? Is that proposal (already covered, incidentally, by a law that's been on the statute books these 26 years) really more newsworthy than a law that forbids taking two or more pictures of someone without their express consent?

    1. gazthejourno

      Re: Agenda?

      No agenda. I was torn between photography and spyware, but the thing with the photography angle is that there is a public interest defence, whereas there isn't with the spyware stuff.

      Not that that makes it right or sensible.

  11. Ru'

    "“Many young people reporting this are under 18”

    Well, duh! I'm guessing in a "normal" population distribution (and depending on the definition of "young") that most young people are under 18.

    1. MiguelC Silver badge

      And let me guess, all old people reporting it are over that threshold? Who would have thought?

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Actually

    One of my son's friends had their iPhone stolen, but they were, with the Help of the "Find My iPhone" app, Blyton-esque, able to track it down and get the Police to arrest the perpetrators.

    Would be a different matter if Apple had decided to call the app "Find My Cheating Partner" instead.

    1. jonathanb Silver badge

      Re: Actually

      You get alerted every time someone uses it to locate the phone, so it isn't any use for finding a cheating partner even if you do have their iTunes password.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Actually

        Log into icloud dot com click on the find my phone icon and locate all your devices - nothing gets noted - handy when I hope I have left an ithingy in the car and not on the train.

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