Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the effect of the subjugation of alleged rape victims to give up private information to the police on case outcomes.
Victims and witnesses should only be asked to provide personal information in pursuit of a reasonable line of enquiry within the context of the individual case, never as a matter of course.
The Government is working alongside criminal justice partners to ensure that this can be done in a way that is proportionate and achieves the delicate balance of protecting individuals’ right to privacy with the interests of justice.
Work undertaken by the Crown Prosecution Service and police includes improved training and the development of a team of specialist and experienced disclosure experts in every police force. The College of Policing is also developing new guidance on investigative practice when mobile data extraction is needed, and the Home Office will work with policing to ensure this will be enabled by appropriate technology and training.