Photos and the police

[bunn]

Someone that I know slightly online had posted some photos of her little girl (a toddler) on her blog, which was, perhaps rather naively,  unlocked. 

A random person came along and posted a horrible and suggestive comment on one of the photos. She was horrified, and googling the username left (the only ID available) she came across another website where she found holiday photos and other innocent pictures of children, again with suggestive and disturbing comments.  Looking further, she decided that although some of the photos had simply been stolen, some of them seemed to have been posed.

She was disturbed by this, and reported both the comment and the website to the police.  Here's the bit that alarmed me though : the police turned up on her doorstep, took her laptop away, and left her with the impression that her name would end up on the sex offenders register.  

They  did come back later to supply a receipt and clarify that she was not currently considered a suspect, but honestly: if the police want people to report this sort of thing, is this the way to go about it?   She's a married woman with a little child who is transparently alarmed by the idea that the Internet Has Nasty People On It: if she gets treated this way, then I can't help feeling that if a single bloke accidentally stumbled across something dodgy while perhaps doing something like surfing perfectly legal adult material, then I'd completely understand why he might choose to move on his way looking nonchalant rather than risk reporting it.

Comments

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

Shit. I'm assuming this is the same person I've seen post this story on DP - I didn't know the latest development though :/ I left her a comment saying I'm sure the police will take it very seriously - obviously they have! I suppose they have to be careful, but how on earth can they consider her a suspect? Would she report it if she was anything but horrified? Crazy.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Must be, surely. I believe she can't post herself at the moment because - well, no laptop! To be honest, I did wonder if the original comment was a troll of some sort, but the followup seems mad however you look at it.

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

Why do they even need her laptop, anyway? It suggests a fundamental lack of understanding of how blogs work. Has she reported the incident to the web hosting service?

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing that possibly the website she found was on one of those amazing moving addresses you hear of and she just happened to catch it somehow, so they want to check her history and cache?

that's the only explanation I can think of anyway.

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

Or else that their standard procedures when coming across anyone associated with computer crime are to grab all the equipment now, so the suspects can't delete things. Association does seem to make for suspicion in some quarters.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

Again, assuming it's the same person posting that I saw on another forum, she did report it to the web hosting service (don't know which site) and they replied there wasn't much they could do to trace the user, since they commented anonymously. Obviously they don't log IPs or anything :/

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Further info: she got a first reply from the police about the comment on her blog suggesting they weren't going to do anything about that, so she downloaded some of the photos because she was worried that the website would move before she managed to get anyone to pay attention to it.

Because she admitted to having downloaded the photos, even though she only did it to try to keep a record, the computer was automatically seized and will be forensically examined, for which there is a long waiting list so she's lost her computer for about 6 months. Which is still pretty stupid.

[the-marquis.livejournal.com]

Sadly it furthers underlines your suggested plan for people to move along didn't see that, etc etc and also certainly never help the police by taking screen caps and definitey never download anything in a bid to help plod prosecute anything - because it will be you they prosecute, and public opinion will have its go too - until the overworked techies and understaffed undermotivated CPS decide you're not a problem.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Yes, absolutely. I did think of offering to look at the thing and at least check the domain registration, trace where the server was hosted and have a peek at the code to check for anything identifiable. I didn't in the end because I assumed the police would do it faster and better than anything I could do.

Bloody glad I didn't now. But if the waiting list for hard disk examination is really that long (she's now been told a year, and her hard disk will be completely wiped when it's returned) one wonders how they can possibly be catching anyone...?

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

Wiped when returned? How can that possibly be justified? Surely if the process wipes the disk then they'd destroy any evidence they gathered; conversely, if the gathering evidence of guilt doesn't wipe the disk then why on earth should gathering evidence of innocence?

Haven't these people heard of disk images?

Or is this another reason for making backups: along with hardware failure and software errors, we have the authorities saying "We know you've done nothing wrong but we thought we'd wipe your disk anyway"?

Get The Register on the case. It probably won't help, but at least you'll get some public sarcasm aimed at the plod.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I know, isn't it mad? The poor woman had no backups either, so has lost her photos, documents and all her banking stuff.

Though given that they seem to think copying is a crime, I do wonder if she had a backup server if they'd have taken that too.

She's getting legal advice on Tuesday, I don't know if she'll want to contact the press after that.

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

There's a school of thought that you can charge the police with criminal damage if they tell you to delete photos, or confiscate your film - given that laws against photography are few and far between, but police like to think they have wide powers.

IANAL of course, but I'd have thought that wiping your disk when there's no suspicion of a crime has got to be along those lines.

I don't know where the relevant law on this sort of thing is, but a quick browse of legislation on confiscation of property keeps coming up with examinations having to be made as soon as reasonably possible, return to be as soon as reasonably possible, and so on. How actual practices relate to the legislation is an entirely different matter, of course.

[kargicq.livejournal.com]

I've been really horrified by this thread. If I have got it right, the pictures she downloaded were NOT k-porn, just ordinary innocent pictures of kids with suggestive comments from this loon? So there is not even a question of her having committed a crime, not even inadvertently in the "I was just doing research" sense. It's all got a bit "friend of a friend", of course, and there's plenty of room for me to have got the wrong end of the stick, but if this is anything like the case, she should kick up a massive fuss, contact her MP, the Daily Mail etc etc. Even if the pictures she downloaded were dodgy, she has not been arrested or charged with anything, let alone convicted, so how can they possibly justify confiscating her property for so long -- surely this would require some kind of warrant from a magistrate -- and how can they justify destroying her property (the data)? IANAL but surely that has to be illegal! If not, we are all in big trouble.

Neuromancer

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Although some of the photos were normal photos of kids having fun with nasty commentary, some of the others were more than that, which is one reason she was so concerned that the site should be fully investigated and went as far as to save copies.

I can see the argument for press involvement, but I can also see why someone might not want their name publicly associated with kiddy porn, and it seems to me that the press can be a dangerous weapon.

If it were me, I'd want to talk to a solicitor first too. CEOP have been advised though.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

..forgot to say, that she is not a particularly technically aware person herself, and from what she's said, the policeman who took her computer seems to be in the same boat. It may be that there is some horrible misunderstanding going on, but even if that is the case, it seems like at the very least, some procedures need to be revised.

[the-marquis.livejournal.com]

Sadly far too often the people who sign up to be coppers are just plain thick. I know I've worked with some of them. Some do have brains etc, but I suspect that anything to do with kiddie porn gets the reporting person tarred with the same brush as the alleged suspect.

[clarienne.livejournal.com]

I knew that plenty of the police aren't very bright - but this beggars belief. *headdesk*