newshound posted
On 01/08/2019 12:14, The Marquis Saint Evremonde wrote:
newshound posted

Gareth's stuff above is a bit tinfoil hat to me, but my scenario
seems to me to be a real (if low probability) threat. If you keep an
off-site backup that you don't declare to the police, presumably you
are committing an offence.
No, I don't think so. You're not generally obliged to answer police
questions after arrest, and there is of course no law requiring
disclosure of all backups *before* arrest.

True but you might be interviewed under caution after a seizure. You
could of course decline to answer any questions at that stage but if
you did "fail to disclose" that might be a black mark if you were
actually guilty.

Clearly the risk scenarios are different depending on whether you are
"guilty" or "innocent", and in particular on whether the data you are
concealing is intrinsically illegal just to possess.

In terms of black marks: Refusing to answer police questions can only be
used against you at trial if you produce something in your defence that
you didn't disclose earlier. I don't think that concealing an offsite
backup could qualify for that, although of course it could make the
prosecution more vengeful.

Especially if forensic investigation found a batch file of the form

Copy really dirty stuff to secret location
Delete and overwrite really dirty stuff

If they can do that, and in particular if secret location is
identifiable, then you're probably stuffed anyway.

--
Evremonde