Foreign Policing News

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2022-09-27/facial-recognition-technology-model-law/101474010 Civil society groups are urging the federal government to take up a model law that would govern the use of facial recognition technology in Australia, where legislative loopholes risk creating a "Wild West".

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/09/cops-wanted-to-keep-mass-surveillance-app-secret-privacy-advocates-refused/ Fog Reveal is "almost invisible" when attempting to search for it online. Might make people reconsider how many apps they gave location permission too, or alternatively switching it off altogether when not needed.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkgbpn/how-the-fbi-wiretapped-the-world On this episode of Cyber, Motherboard Senior Staff Writer Joseph Cox comes on to discuss the code that powered the Anom phone Similarities with the Encro phone situation except Anom was always a police honeypot operation right from the start as opposed to a genuine company that had its phones compromised. Defence lawyers in a case involving Anom want to examine the code on the phone to verify what it does and how it works and they've been told they won't be allowed. In the UK how would this work, is this one of the times public interest immunity might be used?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/canada-e2-80-99s-national-police-force-admits-use-of-spyware-to-hack-phones/ar-AAYZLsX In a “remarkable” disclosure, Canada’s national police force has described for the first time how it uses spyware to infiltrate mobile devices and collect data, including by remotely turning on the camera and microphone of a suspect’s phone or laptop. My view on this.. The public have known for a long time (even pre Snowden) that authorities have the capability to remotely activate cameras and hot mic phones, so don't think the information itself isn't particularly remarkable. The interesting part is that they are publicly acknowledgi…

Macron announces 11 reforms for French police and gendarmerie Measures include doubling the number of police on streets, giving all officers body cameras, and increasing police powers to give fines https://www.connexionfrance.com/article/French-news/Macron-announces-11-reforms-for-French-police-and-gendarmerie Is anybody able to say how this differs from the approach taken in the UK or whether it is broadly in line with what we are doing. Is there anything the French do that would be good to consider applying in the UK?

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/article-ottawa-wants-to-tackle-online-harms-its-still-not-clear-what-its-going/ The Trudeau government went into the election last fall with two promises about “protecting Canadians from online harms.” Having won re-election, they’ve discovered that doing so is easier said than done. Ironic considering that Trudeau threatened to harm/kill peoples pets if they didn't get vaccinated. I'm not normally one to go in for conspiracy theories but it does seem like a lot of governments are pushing a very similar agenda right now, crackdowns on privacy, restrictions on what you can say online, more and more places go…

https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7nmaz/post-office-cops-used-social-media-surveillance-program-illegally The United States Postal Inspection Service, the law enforcement arm of the post office, was “not legally authorized” to conduct blanket keyword searches of social media for terms such as “protest,” “attack,” and “destroy,” an inspector general investigation found, because it is only supposed to investigate cases with some connection to the post office or the mail.

https://www.thelocal.de/20220111/german-police-under-fire-for-using-covid-tracing-app-to-find-witnesses/ German police drew criticism Tuesday for using an app to trace contacts from bars and restaurants in the fight against the pandemic as part of an investigation I can see why they think "if the data is there and can help in the investigation then why not use it". But equally, people were reassured that if they installed the app their data would only be used for public health reasons, not for police investigations. This might discourage people from using the app in future.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/18/facebook-lapd-social-media-surveillance-fake-accounts Facebook is demanding that the Los Angeles police department cease all use of “dummy” accounts on its platforms and stop collecting data on users for surveillance. Bit ironic Facebook asking others to stop spying on users, given their history

https://www.wired.com/story/ddosecrets-police-helicopter-data-leak/ DDoSecrets published the trove Friday afternoon. Privacy advocates say it shows how pervasive law enforcement's eye has become, and how lax its data protection can be. Didn't a UK force get in a bit of trouble a while back when a helicopter took a picture of Michael Mcintyre and posted on Twitter?

https://www.wired.com/story/geofence-warrants-google/ New figures from Google show a tenfold increase in the requests from law enforcement, which target anyone who happened to be in a given location at a specified time. Very opposed to this. Warrants for data should be very specific and limited only to individuals the police have grounds to suspect of a crime. Warrants to identify "everybody in a specific location" crosses the line and makes it a fishing trip, the exact thing warrants are supposed to prevent.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/08/revealed-los-angeles-police-officers-gathering-social-media The Los Angeles police department (LAPD) has directed its officers to collect the social media information of every civilian they interview, including individuals who are not arrested or accused of a crime, according to records shared with the Guardian. Would that be allowed here, or would there be issues with GDPR or RIPA?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-58407794

[quote] Guards at Kabul embassy told they are ineligible for UK protection Exclusive: 125-strong team hired through outsourced contractor given informal notice they no longer have jobs More than 100 guards at the British embassy in Kabul have been told they are not eligible for UK government protection because they were hired through an outsourced contractor, the Guardian has learned. Most of the 125-strong team of security personnel, employed by the global security firm GardaWorld, have been given informal notice that they no longer have jobs guarding the embassy, several said. The guards, some of whom had…

"Law enforcement agencies across Europe, the US, and Oceania revealed Anom’s origins earlier today, saying they had arrested 800 criminal suspects based on intercepted communications." Interesting piece. The police have taken down encrypted messaging apps in the past, seized servers etc, but this seems to be the first time they have actually set up their own specific app from the beginning with this intention. It functioned as most encrypted messaging apps do, except hidden away in the code was a secret master key that allowed the police to decrypt any of the messages. This shows the dangers in trusting any encryption software that doesn't let you inspect the …