European Council Updating Rules on the Use of Schengen Information System

The European Council has adopted new regulations on the use of the Schengen Information System. The changes expands the lists of objects which alerts can be issued for (e.g. false documents and IT equipment, as well as introducing additional categories for alerts:

• Inquiry checks, as an intermediary step between discreet checks and specific checks, which allow for individuals to be interviewed.
• Unknown suspects or wanted persons, which provide for the introduction into the SIS of fingerprints or palm prints discovered at the scenes of serious crimes or terrorist incidents and which are considered to belong to a perpetrator.
• Preventive alerts for children at risk of parental abduction, as well as children and vulnerablepersons who need to be prevented from travelling for their own protection.
• For return decisions issued to illegally staying third-country nationals.

The new features of SIS will be available at a later date, and the UK’s access to the system after leaving the EU is currently under negotiation.

Investigatory Powers Act 2016 Communications Data Code of Practice

The Home Office has updated a code of practice for Parts 3 and 4 of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, providing guidance for the acquisition of communications data and when it is retained.

Government Report on Cyber Threats to the UK

The Joint Committee has published a report on the cyber threat to the UK’s critical national infrastructure (which includes 13 sectors such as energy, health services, and transport). The report states that more aggressive and non-state actors (e.g. OCGs) are becoming more capable and in higher volume.

IOPC Consultation on Statutory Guidance

The IOPC are consulting on their statutory guidance for police forces, which covers conduct matters, referrals, death and serious injury, investigation reports, and access to the police complaints system. The consultation closes on 23 January 2019. Changes to the guidance result from changes to the police complaints system brought by the Policing and Crime Act 2017, which should all be in place by early 2019. This guidance will be available shortly after the legal changes come into force.

Review of the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016

The Home Office has published a review into the outcomes of the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 (PSA).

The review found that most of the main aims of the PSA appear to have been achieved, with the open sale of new psychoactive substances (NPS) largely eliminated, a significant fall in NPS use in the general population, and a reduction in health-related harms which is likely to have been achieved through reduced usage. However, some areas of concern have remained or emerged since the Act, such as the supply of NPS by street dealers, the continued development of new substances, the potential displacement from NPS to other harmful substances, and continued high levels of synthetic cannabinoid use among the homeless and prison populations.

Government report recommends hand car washes should require licenses to prevent modern slavery

The Environmental Audit Committee report on hand car washes have recommended that the Government should trial a licensing scheme for hand car washes, and to review whether the Modern Slavery Act 2015 should be updated to cover business as small as those.

The report found that 27% of all labour exploitation cases to the Modern Slavery Helpline concerned workers in car washes.

Consultation launched on forced marriage

The Home Office has launched a consultation to seek views on whether it is necessary to introduce a new legal mandatory reporting duty relating to cases of forced marriage and, if it is, what such a reporting requirement would look like. It also seeks views on how the current guidance on forced marriage could be improved and strengthened. The consultation closes on 23 January 2019.

Government launches inquiry into mental health of men and boys

The Women and Equalities Committee has launched an inquiry into the mental health of men and boys, and is requesting written submissions by 18 February 2019.

76% of people who take their lives are men, and 12.5% of men in the UK are suffering from one of the most common mental health disorders. Men are also three times more likely to be alcohol dependent than women.

ICO finds the Met’s Gangs Matrix breaches data protection laws

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) began an investigation into the Met’s Gangs Matrix after Amnesty International raised concerns. The ICO has found the Gangs Matrix to have multiple serious breaches of data protection laws, and issued an enforcement notice which gives the Met six months to make changes. It has not, however, requested the Met shut down the database as it recognises its value, if managed properly.

The following issues were identified:

• It does not clearly distinguish between victims and offenders;
• The operating model was unclear and inconsistently applied across the boroughs;
• Some boroughs operated informal lists of people who had been removed from the Gangs Matrix, meaning that the MPS continued to monitor people even when intelligence had shown that they were no longer active gang members;
• Excessive processing of data as a result of blanket sharing with third parties that failed to distinguish between high and low risk individuals;
• Potential to cause damage and distress to the disproportionate number of young, black men on the Matrix;
• The absence of a Equality Impact Assessment;
• An absence, over several years, of effective central governance, oversight or audit of data processed as part of the Gangs Matrix, resulting in risk of damage or distress to those on it;
• The absence of information sharing agreements governing the purpose and use of the data by those third parties and insufficient guidance about how the third parties should handle and use the data.

The Met now has to improve guidance on the intelligence required to show gang membership, erase informal lists, produce guidance on the use of social media for intelligence, ensure data sharing with partners is secure and proportionate, and conduct a Data Protection Impact Assessment.

Some questions have been raised regarding distinguishing between victim, suspect, and offender – as for individuals these are commonly not mutually exclusive.

Law Commission scoping report on abusive and offensive online communications

The Law Commission has published a scoping report on abusive and offensive online communications. The report concludes that online communications are criminalised to the same extent or greater than equivalent offline offending. However, it makes the following recommendations for reform:

• Many of the applicable offences do not adequately reflect the nature of some of the offending behaviour in the online environment, and the degree of harm it can cause.
• Practical and cultural barriers mean that not all harmful online conduct is pursued in terms of criminal law enforcement to the same extent that it might be in an offline context.
• More generally, criminal offences could be improved so they are clearer and more effectively target serious harm and criminality.
• The large number of overlapping offences can cause confusion.
• Ambiguous terms such as “gross offensiveness” “obscenity” and “indecency” don’t provide the required clarity for prosecutors.

It is believed those reforms would help reduce online abuse, as well as tackle “pile on” harassment where harassment is coordinated against an individual, and serious privacy breaches such as the sharing of private sexual images.