- The data was collected in 2016, and was used in 2023 - a retention period of 7 years, way longer than the specified maximum of 2
- I'd argue that the basis of lawmaking is weighing the advantages versus the costs - supplying partial evidence in a case once a decade does not meet the requirements for introducing mass surveillance with infinite retention
The police work was sloppy, the facts as they stand are:
- The guy was on a list of 1400 or so of suspects, and was convicted of abducting a 13yo in 2023, a different crime. It bears mentioning that the town had a population of 5k and the municipiality 63k, halving that just to count the men doesn't give you a short list
- A white car was seen at the 2016 scene of the crime, suspected to be a Hyundai i30, but with a degree of uncertainty, just to illustrate how uncertain they were, the article mentions the police confiscated a white van
- The guy owned and sold his 2016 Hyundai around the time
- Thanks to Big Brother dragnet perma-retention surveillance (mobile cell info), it was established that the guy was in the area (a train station!) of the 2016 crime at the time (which is a large window considering the exact time of the disappearence of the first girl is not well known)
From this it's unclear to me whether the same guy was the perp in the 2016 and 2023 cases. If he was, I'd argue the dragnet-collected evidence is only circumstantial. I feel like it was possible that the police wanted to pin the crime on him as they had an expectation to catch the 2016 killer and he was obviously a pedo.
Even if he did it, I'd say the digital evidence was neither necessary nor that important in convicting him.
"- The data was collected in 2016, and was used in 2023 - a retention period of 7 years, way longer than the specified maximum of 2"
Normally, when there's an ongoing police investigation, the police can either request and retain a copy of the data, or request the holder of the data retain it until "further notice". I'm assuming that's what was going on here.
"If he was, I'd argue the dragnet-collected evidence is only circumstantial."
The phone logging was not conclusive evidence, only used to establish that he had been in the area. They found various artifacts in his house, like a roll of duct tape with the dead girls DNA on, that he explained he had found while walking around the lake, the same type of duct tape used to bind the girl. They also found various other items with the girls DNA on.
They used the logging data to establish his whereabouts for the night in question and compared it to his statement of where he'd been. They also used various financial transactions, like buying a cup of coffee with his credit card at a gas station, etc.
In Denmark, DNA cannot be used as a single evidence, only as supporting evidence, and the same goes for phone logging. But combined, if your location data says you've been there, and your DNA is found at the crime scene, even though it may not by itself be enough to get you convicted, it makes all other evidence much more believable.
I've read on a bit and found the additional details about the tape with DNA on it, which makes him look more guilty - but this wasnt mentioned in the wikipedia article, and the phone logs which you mentioned as justification for mass surveillance are less than worthless.
Establishing that both the perp and victim was at the same train station some time during a longish window time doesn't mean jack.
As for DNA I'm not a criminology expert, but if courts don't accept it as conclusive evidence means there's something wrong with it - courts have a long history of accepting official sounding bunk ('expert' witnesses, polygraph etc) in order to manufacture evidence to their conclusions.
Anyways I don't want to detour from my main argument that even from the official PoV the phone evidence is very weak, I'd argue it's meaningless, and using this as justification as mass surveillance is a counterargument if anything.
Though I can imagine it's incredibly easy to deliberately misrepresent it as 'we used digital records to catch a pedo murderer' by dishonest supporters of the policy.
- The data was collected in 2016, and was used in 2023 - a retention period of 7 years, way longer than the specified maximum of 2
- I'd argue that the basis of lawmaking is weighing the advantages versus the costs - supplying partial evidence in a case once a decade does not meet the requirements for introducing mass surveillance with infinite retention
The police work was sloppy, the facts as they stand are:
- The guy was on a list of 1400 or so of suspects, and was convicted of abducting a 13yo in 2023, a different crime. It bears mentioning that the town had a population of 5k and the municipiality 63k, halving that just to count the men doesn't give you a short list
- A white car was seen at the 2016 scene of the crime, suspected to be a Hyundai i30, but with a degree of uncertainty, just to illustrate how uncertain they were, the article mentions the police confiscated a white van
- The guy owned and sold his 2016 Hyundai around the time
- Thanks to Big Brother dragnet perma-retention surveillance (mobile cell info), it was established that the guy was in the area (a train station!) of the 2016 crime at the time (which is a large window considering the exact time of the disappearence of the first girl is not well known)
From this it's unclear to me whether the same guy was the perp in the 2016 and 2023 cases. If he was, I'd argue the dragnet-collected evidence is only circumstantial. I feel like it was possible that the police wanted to pin the crime on him as they had an expectation to catch the 2016 killer and he was obviously a pedo.
Even if he did it, I'd say the digital evidence was neither necessary nor that important in convicting him.