• Question: Do you believe that the police will always do right? Surely, they could access data which has nothing to do with their case without a warrant?

    Asked by 13mac to Sarah on 26 Jan 2018.
    • Photo: Sarah Knight

      Sarah Knight answered on 26 Jan 2018:

      This is a question of trust. We can’t individually check up on every police officer, so we have to trust that they will do their job honestly and thoroughly — but we also make sure that there are people whose job it is to check this, just in case. Think about doctors: do you trust doctors to pay attention, do their job properly, and act in the best interests of their patients? Of course — and almost all doctors do. But we also have the General Medical Council, which checks up on doctors and can step in if a doctor does something wrong. Similarly, we trust the police to do their jobs properly, and if anyone has concerns that the police are doing something wrong when they access people’s data they can complain to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, whose job it is to oversee this.

Comments

  • Photo: Wendy

    Wendy commented on :

    History suggests that yes, police will not always do the right things – the police force, like every other human institution, is made up of human beings, and there will always be a few who make mistakes or deliberately abuse their position. As Sarah says, that’s why we have oversight, including the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, and the courts. A crucial element of this oversight is that the public must be able to make and pursue complaints and get a fair hearing.

    wg