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UK Police Won't Comment On The Tracking of People's Phone Calls

Posted by samzenpus on from the ask-me-that-later dept.

Daniel_Stuckey writes You've maybe heard a bit about Stingray. Over the past couple of years, it has emerged that police forces in the US have been using the powerful surveillance tool, which tricks phones into connecting to a dragnet, to track mobile devices, and intercept calls and text messages. Meanwhile, the London Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) continue to remain tight lipped about their use of the technology, leaving citizens in the dark on what privacy protections, if any, are in place for those who may get swept up by the broad surveillance techniques.

52 comments

  1. Of couse they are... by buckfeta2014 · · Score: 1

    'nuff said.

    --
    Buck Feta. You know what to do.
    1. Re:Of couse they are... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      ... CROWN CORPORATION POLICY ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS

      Babylon Is Fallen by kate u/v kaia
      1. NAME: The master key to the entire system's/CROWN CORPORATION'S game. The
      NAME is the lynch pin to the entire legal/control construct. Without a LEGAL NAME,
      which is your consent by agreeing to be said NAME, the system vampires cannot literally
      feed on your life blood/creation source energy that is typically shown in the physical
      materials we collect. It is only the CONSENT to be/use/have a LEGAL NAME/Mark of the
      Beast that is required for your absolute spiritual contract/deal with the devil motif to be
      in FULL FORCE AND EFFECT with you as a SLAVE and them as MASTER. For PROOF of
      this, look and see how much of your life/existence involves a LEGAL NAME and you will
      see the measure of control the system has over you.
      2. REGISTER/REGISTRATION etc. : Any/all things registered are FULLY SURRENDERED
      with consent to the CROWN CORPORATION with NO legal recourse until such things are
      removed by exposing the INTENT by those who serve the CROWN CORPORATION to
      commit fraud knowingly/unknowingly.
      ex: A child that is REGISTERED is CROWN PROPERTY by ignorant consent where the truth
      of REGISTERING was not brought forth which is the original INTENT by CROWN
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      is the ultimate distraction and destroyer of creator souls, literally. ALL money is based on
      the soul CONTRACT commonly known as a BIRTH CERTIFICATE.
      4. BIRTH CERTIFICATE: The ORIGINAL SIN CONTRACT. The NAME you think/claim as
      yours is NOT your creation. Your "assumed NAME" was created by your parents/family
      members/adoptive kin, NOT YOU. This is an ORIGINAL CREATION manifested by another
      that is, in turn, REGISTERED thus rendering it CROWN CORPORATION PROPERTY as
      previously stated. It is upon this deception that YOUR literal soul was and is enslaved and
      upon which ALL MONEY/DEBT is created. A DEBT BOND "value" was placed in the BIRTH
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      slave trading at its finest which divides and conquers humanity in the
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      5. COMMAND AND CONTROL: The courts and governments are the system slaves
      within, bought and paid for where the true command and control aspects are the
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      and governments such as the BANKS/RELIGIONS and those that control them. The courts
      and governments are merely the filler for this "sandwich" of deception and illusion.
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      system of control is destroyed, most importantly those at the very top of this spiritual
      slavery pyramid. Without the NAME, all levels above are ultimately annihilated
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      6. THE TRIPLE CROWN: This consists of ROME, CITY OF LONDON CROWN CORPORATION
      and WASHINGTON D.C. They are the unholy trinity of the 3 in 1, 1 in 3 as illustrated
      clearly in the Papal Crown: Religion, to control the beliefs, minds and spirituality of
      humanity, the Courts and Banks to control the money/bonds an

  2. Well by Spad · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...leaving citizens in the dark on what privacy protections, if any, are in place...

    I'll give you a hint, there aren't any.

    1. Re:Well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This. Any you think remain are just a 'terrorist threat' from gone...

    2. Re:Well by Beriaru · · Score: 2

      They dont need any esoteric piece of technology. Just a call to the carrier, and there you are: all your sms and conversations. And thats for an anonymous citizen. If they have you in a list, you provably have a man in the middle for all your internet traffic.

    3. Re:Well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

      AIPAC means that:
      A vote for the Democrats is a vote for Jewish power.
      A vote for the Republicans is a vote for Jewish power.

      Facebook: Owned by Jews.
      Google: Owned by Jews.
      Tesla: Owned by Jews.
      etc...

      Sequoia Capital. A Jewish penis fucking the American stockmarket. Their web site proudly lists how deep their tentacles go.

      Let's take our nation back.
      No more Jews in banking.
      No more Jews in Hollywood.
      No more Jews in media.
      No more Jews controlling the Internet.

    4. Re:Well by Pieroxy · · Score: -1, Troll

      Maybe if you pulled your fingers out of your ass you could actually try to do something and beat the Jews at their own game, you know, by being smarter than them. Or are you just asserting they're smarter than you? In that case, I'd say they deserve to be in these places.

      /trollFeeding

      --
      Write boring code, not shiny code!
    5. Re:Well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      They are not 'smarter' - they just *always* make their best to help each other and to fuck over any non-Jew.

    6. Re:Well by Pieroxy · · Score: 1, Insightful

      isn't helping each other some form of intelligence? Given that it brought them to all those places, I'd say it is. So yes, smarter.

      --
      Write boring code, not shiny code!
    7. Re:Well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      no mate, the British police use a (*)DATONG imsi catcher, similar to the Harris 'ray' series but better designed & cheaper. They deploy it in London when they want to work-out who is present in a particular area, around a square mile. They of course are also able ask for retained data from the 'phone companies, but they do own and operate passive/active fake cell tower devices. The legality of imsi catcher use by the police in the UK is uncertain.
      In London it's also allegedly common to be asked by a Police officer if he can 'just have a quick look at your smartphone' - wherupon he dumps the entire content into the NSA database, in around 20 seconds, or 25 seconds if you have a 4-digit PIN code on your iPhone.

      FACTS:
      consider using minimum 6-digit alphanumeric pass-phrases for locking your phone if you don't want your entire life analysed forever.
      As others have commented you can be aware of Ãactive IMISI catcherÃ(TM) Cell-ID - but this can trivially be spoofed & Ãpassive IMSI catchingÃ(TM) is also an infowar weapon, and impossible to spot. simply donÃ(TM)t use the current generation of communication devices!

      (*)DATONG is a high-tech UK company based in Yorkshire, producing excellent products over the years for the Amateur (Ham) Radio market. Nowadays they seem to do defence/attack devices which are great when used against criminals - but less exciting when used routinely against average citizens.

      It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen....

    8. Re:Well by SternisheFan · · Score: 1

      Thank you Eric Snowden, for doing the right thing at the time it needed to be done.

    9. Re:Well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      who is Eric Snowden?

    10. Re:Well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Edward Snowden's half-step-cousin-fifth-removed-in-law, the source of the second leak

  3. The entire THING is extra judicial. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    Once you've established that it's illegal, why are you expecting legal protections to apply to its use? That's like torturing people with doctors. Ok, bad example.

  4. Where was Orwell from? by theshowmecanuck · · Score: 1

    'nough said.

    --
    -- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
    1. Re:Where was Orwell from? by sound+vision · · Score: 1

      'nougat said.

    2. Re:Where was Orwell from? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Orwell didn't exist, his name was Eric Blair.

    3. Re: Where was Orwell from? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      His name was Eric Blair.

    4. Re:Where was Orwell from? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and your name is anal retentive

    5. Re:Where was Orwell from? by Panoptes · · Score: 1

      Pen name taken from the river Orwell.

  5. It's not extra-judicial by Bruce66423 · · Score: 4, Informative

    There is an judicial organisation with responsibility for oversight of this. The question is whether they are doing their job, and whether the penalties for abuse are sufficient. Given that the answer to both is probably 'no', we clearly do have a problem, but it's too simple to say it is 'extra-judicial'.

    1. Re:It's not extra-judicial by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bullshit doublespeak. The law says such devices are illegal and that's a separate issue from regulators being captured/derelict.

    2. Re:It's not extra-judicial by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      By that standard, nothing is ever extra-judicial. The most atrocious human rights violations were committed under the rule of law. An oversight committee is - in practice - admission that so much abuse is going to happen that under no circumstances can those affected be allowed to be informed or even get legal recourse, lest the system would collapse.

    3. Re:It's not extra-judicial by advocate_one · · Score: 1

      deliberately kept underfunded, understaffed and their terms of reference are defined so tightly that they cannot actually do anything...

      --
      Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
    4. Re:It's not extra-judicial by ATMAvatar · · Score: 1

      In the case of the US, it's a secret court with secret proceedings - as far as anyone knows, the actual approval for surveillance is rubber-stamped by circus clowns. Even then, it was shown that much of our surveillance was done without consulting the special "court". I don't see why we should assume the UK system is any different.

      --
      "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
    5. Re:It's not extra-judicial by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sure the UK system is different. There, the clown judges have powdered white wigs instead of curly orange wigs.

    6. Re:It's not extra-judicial by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, the real question is just what level of force is appropriate self defense when the crime being attempted against you is the removal of your rights as a person.

      "Being no longer a person" sounds pretty deadly to me, so I think lethal force should be just right.

    7. Re: It's not extra-judicial by tom229 · · Score: 1

      No true revolution can be held up by a single man. We'd all have to be leaders.

      That being said, privacy violations will never spawn a revolution. The average person is motivated by short term conveniences, not long term ideals. Keep the population fed, busy, and entertained and you should be able to get away with anything.

      --
      If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
  6. Perhaps by Chrisq · · Score: 3, Funny

    Meanwhile, the London Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) continue to remain tight lipped about their use of the technology,

    perhaps they don't want to admit that they don't know how to work the damned thing. Truncheons and battering rams fine, but computers are a little tricky

    1. Re: Perhaps by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So what? Brawns beat brains any time. The smartest guy on the block will always lose in a direct confrontation with the strongest guy. And when the strongest bully is backed by the State, you cannot play by your strengths (as pitiful as they are). You will always lose.

    2. Re:Perhaps by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Never attribute to incompetence what can be attributed to malice.

      They may not be able to use it any better than my grandmother does occulus rift, but that's only on an operational, terror-stopping, horrid-crime-preventing level.
      It'll take them about two weeks before the system was even implemented in order to figure out how to spy on "loved" ones, "accidentally" the people they don't like for arrest and elimination, and accumulate personal and industrial blackmail and sensitive data materials.

      It may be very complicated protecting the peace with it, but the abuse is just unwrapping gifts at christmas!*

      *which by the way they hope to confiscate next time you fly.

  7. ECHR by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    The European Court of Human Rights recently ruled that collecting and storing IP addresses, as mandated by a related directive, is illegal. This is considered to be collecting evidence of a possible crime that may or may not happen in the future and before the person is even a suspect. The same most likely applies to phone records to a certain extent, too. I'm curious to see how this plays out in the next few years.

    1. Re:ECHR by Teun · · Score: 1
      Probably means another reason for the UK to withdraw from the EU.

      Of course all in the name of greater democracy.

      --
      "The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
    2. Re:ECHR by alex67500 · · Score: 1

      47 countries have signed the ECHR convention, only 27 are in the EU. Turkey, for instance, has been found guilty by the ECHR for not providing fair trials, but they aren't part of the EU.

      In short, the UK leaving the EU would most likely not mean they will leave the jurisdiction of the ECHR.

    3. Re:ECHR by gsnedders · · Score: 1

      Related is Malone v. The United Kingdom (1984) on wiretapping of phone lines.

    4. Re:ECHR by Teun · · Score: 1

      Absolutely but logic doesn't always makes you look good and re-elected.

      --
      "The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
  8. Use a Cell ID identifier on a phone by stiggle · · Score: 2

    As each cell has a CID (Cell ID) you can get software which will display this, and other, information.
    If you know what the CID should be for a specific area then you can restrict your phone use if you don't recognise the CID.

    eg. 2 phones - one a burner you NEVER use, but is always on so you can track the CID,
    Your main phone you only switch on when you trust the CID of the cell you're in to make the calls.

    A public database of Cell ID - http://opencellid.org/ Its a little out on some of its info, but its a good starting point.

    1. Re:Use a Cell ID identifier on a phone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You're assuming that it's happening at the cell tower level. It probably isn't. For a start that'd be 1) obvious and 2) fail to catch them when out of that cell's area.

      It's far more likely they're working with the mobile networks to route calls to/from those numbers through their own servers and recording it in that way.

    2. Re:Use a Cell ID identifier on a phone by l_bratch · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Even if it is happening at cell tower level, who's to say they don't just duplicate a cell ID?

    3. Re:Use a Cell ID identifier on a phone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You need the cell id and its approximate signal strength at your location. There are messages phones can send to the tower to say "hi, what is my signal strength?" and that answer should be about the same. Most cell towers now have several cells too so that could be useful too. After all this same technique is how many phones use wifi to figure out where they are. I've seen ads for devices that can tell you the signal strength of a phone from an aircraft. Two points and you have a location.

    4. Re:Use a Cell ID identifier on a phone by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Sounds like you could write an app that automatically compares the CID to the database and alerts you to discrepancies.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    5. Re:Use a Cell ID identifier on a phone by itschy · · Score: 1

      That is exactly what this is meant to achieve.

    6. Re:Use a Cell ID identifier on a phone by coofercat · · Score: 1

      How about RedPhone + TextSecure?

      Although if cells are your bag, then Llama can trigger events based on the ones you're tuned to.

    7. Re:Use a Cell ID identifier on a phone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's called Spidey and already exists on GitHub.

  9. You need to ask? by gweihir · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ok, let me spell it out for you:

    - No privacy protection whatsoever. If you take nude pictures, they will be shared around or if you leave your phone on during sex they will be listening.
    - No need for reasonable suspicion to do this to you, a whim is enough.
    - And no accountability at all on their side.

    Clear?

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    1. Re:You need to ask? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Counterpoints as required.

      - Data Protection Act & UK libel laws.. Personally identifiable information, regardless of format, cannot be disseminated without the data subjects approval unless a specifc court order exists, nor can it be kept any longer than it is needed (therefore, data irrelevant to an in investigation is already illegal to retain). Trying to get around this by 'sharing' it would fall afoul under UK libel laws, under which 'truth' is not a defence; if the data subject (the person in the picture) can show that there is a balance of probability that the picture was disseminated to discredit them, then anyone involved is up shit creek.

      - See the DPA again. A whim is not enough. Even if they got access without violation wiretapping laws etc, information must be relevant to an existing investigation or purged.

      - And again. The law exists already, which is probably why the MET isn't commenting. If they say something and lawyers see even a tiny crack in what they say, the discovery process that follows would be extremely expensive - and possibly very embarrassing - for them. Being quiet doesn't automatically mean they're guilty of anything untoward, it just means that they're prioritising self-preservation - a priority that makes sense with all the embarrassing stories that have been in the media over the last year.

  10. It's not extra-judicial by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    no offense, but your country and ours (US) is a load of bullshit, here we have "secretive courts" which of course the Supreme Court (for one reason or another) refuse to announce as illegal? Citizens who don't know or care because they are to obsessed over their status in life based on material goods, or because one or both (if you have a "spouse") have to work ridiculous hours at your jobs (regardless of educational status).

    I know about this bullshit, but what I'm I going to do? Rise up and become a leader to another handful of people that are going to care? Lets say I was able to become someone who convinced a majority to care, you know the-powers-that-be would ruin me and the movement as terrorists, hell with what they can do they can just upload child porn on my computer then say I downloaded it! Thats really the whole point of all this "National Security" bullshit, to control people!

       

  11. Privacy? Protections? by Chas · · Score: 1

    Here's the answer.

    *Plays loop of loud, sarcastic laughter*

    --


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!
  12. And Don't Forget by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Without the minimum levels of oversight, procedure and permanent documentation that come with, say, having a warrant done, All of that evidence can *also* just appear on those same whims.

    At that point having the full hammer of the law strike down upon you could be as simple as your ex wife's cousin's girlfriend hearing just now about your divorce and thinking "wow, what an asshole. Oh hey I got 5 minutes anyways..." you (now) tax-evading liberal-voting pedophile.

  13. This is England by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Here in England we dont do freedom anymore, it was far more important what was on the TV or what football was on,
    Free speech died. was nice while it lasted though. Opression is here !

  14. Well yeah... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Every country in the world right now is pretending they don't take part in the evil spying/surveillance schemes the US uses. Sure the UK is the most (video)surveilled country on the planet, but they'd never stoop so low as to listen in on a phone call.

  15. I suspect my phone has connected to a Stingray by Jiggy · · Score: 1

    I run along the Thames Embankment (London Bridge to Westminster via St Paul's Cathedral and back) at lunch time and during the St Paul's Protest Camp my smartphone would misbehave when I ran past it. It would also need a reboot on my return for it to make/receive calls again. Never happened anywhere else or at anytime else. 2+2 equals buggy Stringray deployment?