Of course, there are cases where a person’s WhatsApp messages, photos, GPS or other digital data could be instrumental in the outcome of a criminal investigation. These changes won’t block police from ever requesting access to a complainant’s devices. But they will mean that searches of phones, laptops and tablets are no longer treated as an essential, one-size-fits-all procedure.

This June, a major report by an independent government watchdog concluded that police data extraction methods “appeared excessive in many cases”, and a subsequent judgment in the Court of Appeal ruled that investigators should never review a witness’s digital data “without good cause”. Both the report and the court judgment contributed to the NPCC’s decision to scrap consent forms.

Why it matters that police can no longer routinely ask rape victims to hand over their phones