UK government plans to log every call, text and email
/v3-uk/news/1948668/uk-government-plans-log-text-email
14 Aug 2008, Iain Thomson , V3
The Home office has issued a consultation paper for a new law that would force phone companies, ISPs and network operators to record and store every phone call, web page request and text message.
The information would have to be stored for 12 months by service providers and would be searchable by a wide variety of organisations, including local councils, health authorities, and even Ofsted and the Post Office.
"A key aspect of the debate, both during the public consultation on, and parliamentary debate about, the code of practice for voluntary retention of data, and also during the debate about the Directive within the European Council and the European Parliament, has been the impact, or potential impact, that retention of communications data has on individuals’ human rights," the document states. "The implementation of the Directive does not alter the balance in that debate and we consider that these measures are a proportionate interference with individuals’ right to privacy to ensure protection of the public."
The document gives case histories of instances where this data has been used to solve crimes, such as data used by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre, which from March to June 2008 identified 96 suspects - who have been arrested - and safeguarded 30 children through the use of internet-related data.
The shadow home secretary, Dominic Grieve, told The Guardian: "Yet again the government have proved themselves unable to resist the temptation to take a power quite properly designed to combat terrorism to snoop on the lives of ordinary people in everyday circumstances."
Landline and mobile phone records are already stored for 12 months as a matter of course and the extension of the system into web browsing history and email accounts is merely in line with current EU policy, the government says. Its usefulness in terrorism cases was also quoted.
"We will be told it is for use in combating terrorism and organised crime but if Ripa [Regulation of Investigatory Powers] powers are anything to go by, it will soon be used to spy on ordinary people's kids, pets and bins," said Liberal Democrats' home affairs spokesman, Chris Huhne.
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Do you agree?
Can we trust Government with this information?
I agree with the search for porn and paedophiles on internet and terrorism suspects. However I cannot possibly understand why all these agencies will have access to a person's private information. Are our everyday banking transactions safe, for example? Can we trust the government to keep this information safe? Their past records are not so good. This is very worrying even to someone who has nothing to hide but plenty to lose in the wrong hands.
Posted by jobe, 21 Aug 2008
Another Dictatorship
again 2day we hear - read that yet again this government has lost more data this time on criminals. need i say more.. just dont trust THEM, its another dictatorship.
Posted by gwil, 22 Aug 2008
And the Government?
And what about all the Government phone calls, emails, etc.? Will they all be stored so that they can be checked and searched next time there's a government cock-up? Or will they exempt themselves or make the information unavailable again under the usual security or "not in the public interest" umbrellas?
For once, just ONCE, let's see the government lead by example, and then, when THEY'VE got it right, and ONLY then, can they come back to the public and ask us to do the same.
On top of that, let's make sure that whichever organisation oversees this is TOTALLY independant of any government department, to make sure everything is above board and that any requests for data out of the system is properly monitored.
Also, let's make sure that it is properly monitored regarding spending, milestones, system integrity, etc., so that it doesn't fail like so may other goverment IT projects have.
I'm not totally against the whole idea, in fact quite the opposite - I can just see the potential for massive abuse of the information being held if the right controls are not put in place.
Finally, the first rule put in place regarding those people put in charge of the system should be "If the system suffers abuse, misuse, or data loss, those people involved and/or responsible MUST immediately resign their position (governmental, civil, public, or private) and lose all pension rights, etc." This being on top of any prosecution, etc., that may be brought up later on. That might just help people think a bit more seriously about things like losing memory sticks with data on and other computer security issues, rather than just shrugging their shoulders and walking away to another job with a golden handshake.
Posted by Tele, 24 Aug 2008
don't make me laugh
Just another smoke screen to try and hide the fact they have been doing it for years. It's even easier now everything is digital, why do think faster and faster supercomputers are needed. Easy solution send it all in code, they can then spend all their time trying to decode it.
Having a private company doing it is a joke, more lost data on dodgy "Windows PC's. A bunch of untrained Monkeys could do better, oops that an insult to Monkeys my apologies.
Posted by Rich, 04 Jan 2009