Police have been unlawfully obtaining rape victims’ school and medical records and must stop or face sanctions and fines, a watchdog has said.
The Information Commissioner’s office (ICO) has released a legal opinion on data gathering in sexual offence investigations that aims to enforce compliance with the law.
It says that police have been violating data protection laws and that if they do not follow the requirements set out “it is likely that the ICO will take enforcement action”.
John Edwards, the Information Commissioner, told The Independent that the document – called “Who’s under investigation?” – was a “line in the sand”.
“We’re going to make our expectations clear and what the law means, and that means that when we come to look at allegations of poor practice there will be no excuse,” he added.
“Police investigative practices for rape and serious sexual offences are overly intrusive, overly information hungry and are being experienced by victims as re-victimising and traumatising, causing a not insignificant portion of them to withdraw from the process.”
Mr Edwards said the watchdog would be asking advocacy groups to flag violations by police forces, adding: “We’ll go in – we might audit, we might investigate.
“If we find poor practices we can issue enforcement notices, and if we find places aren’t responding we can actually issue fines.”
The Information Commissioner has ordered all police forces to stop using statements or forms to obtain rape victims’ “general consent” to obtain personal information from third parties.
“Any personal data obtained relating to a victim must be adequate, relevant, not excessive and pertinent to an investigation,” said a report released on Tuesday.
It comes amid warnings that unnecessary intrusion has been causing victims to drop out of prosecutions, and delaying investigations that can take years to reach court.
Only 1.5 per cent of recorded rapes and 3.5 per cent of all sexual offences now result in a charge in England and Wales.
The ICO said that current practices were undermining trust in the criminal justice system, and that more victims may feel able to pursue prosecutions “if there is no unnecessary intrusion into their private lives and those of friends and family”.
Police and prosecutors have defended requesting rape victims’ mobile phones and personal information, including school and medical records, as a necessary safeguard to ensure that cases do not collapse if new material is later uncovered by the defence.
The ICO said that material can still be obtained, but in a more focused and limited way, and where third parties are informed about how it could be used.
Mr Edwards said that police sometimes have “no idea” whether telecommunications companies, councils, schools, social services and mental health providers and other bodies hold information relevant to an investigation.
“That’s not good enough, they couldn’t do that with the offender,” he added.
“Police need to think about every single request for information and draw a really clear link between that and the offence under investigation. They can’t chase down every possible speculative lead or line of enquiry to undermine a victim’s credibility, when they are actually trying to establish the circumstances of a serious sexual assault.”
A previous intervention by the ICO caused police to change the way they obtained and searched victims’ mobile phones, after women reported they were told that investigations would be stopped unless they consented to a full download of their messages, photos and social media.
