Right now, if you report a crime in the UK, your name and information is being placed into a secret database. So far, the police have logged at least 18,000 names. If you call 999 for any reason, be it to report a crime, as a witness or to any other incident, you will be asked for your ethnicity and date of birth. That information is then being placed into a database that also contains information on suspected criminals.

On the database of one force alone, the personal details of 180,000 people who phoned police were recorded  -  four times more than the number of suspected criminals listed on the site.

North Yorkshire Police’s information management system contained data on 181,917 innocent informants, 38,259 suspects and 107,566 victims recorded as aggrieved or ‘vulnerable aggrieved’.

The information is held for a minimum of 15 years, and can be stored for up to 100 years in the most serious cases.

Personal details can also be passed from North Yorkshire Police to other forces.

The police defend their actions by stating that the collection of personal information is done to accurately identify repeat callers, possible fraudsters, and those who participate in anti-social behavior. The police have seemingly crossed the line from protector to enforcer of political agendas. Now that this information is in the public hands, the public will probably stop reporting crimes. It will also further remove the police from the public it claims to protect.