A new policy in England and Wales is asking victims of rape and sexual assault to hand over their phones to police as evidence, and may be used by both prosecutors and the defense in court.
The consent forms asking permission to access emails, messages and images has some concerned that victims are being treated as suspects.
However, Kiwis shouldn't be concerned a similar policy could be enacted here, one victim advocate says.
"For the last 10 years that I've been doing this work, a lot of our survivors are actually more than happy to hand up any information that’s hopefully going to lead to a prosecution,” victim advocate Louise Nicholas explained on TVNZ1's Breakfast this morning.
She said English and Welsh advocacy groups are concerned police may "go further than just through emails, social media and go back in their history and perhaps find stuff that survivors don't want them to see."
"Police in New Zealand, they only look at that particular area. They don't go any further back or any further forward – they just really focus on perhaps evidence around the time of the crime taking place, and as an advocate, that's what we need here in New Zealand is more people like myself to be able to support our survivors to be able to feel comfortable giving information that police need in order to get a successful prosecution."
Ms Nicholas said while police here would be highly unlikely to go through victims' phones beyond established parameters, she could "understand why the advocacy groups are up in arms about this, and why survivors will probably not come forward because of that."
"I'm grateful that here in New Zealand, that just doesn't work here. Police are very victim-focused. They ensure the safety of our survivors going through the process and there is no way they would need anything other than information that, like I say, our survivors are more than happy to give."
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