UK government to store all internet traffic data

The UK government's Strategic Defence and Security Review includes plans to force ISPs, and possibly companies, to store all email and internet data for at least a year.

The plans call for legislation to "preserve the ability of the security, intelligence and law enforcement agencies to obtain communication data and to intercept communications".

"Communications data provides evidence in court to secure convictions of those engaged in activities that cause serious harm," said the Review.

"It has played a role in every major Security Service counterterrorism operation, and in 95 per cent of all serious organised crime investigations."

The plans will place responsibility on ISPs to store the data, but similar plans have also put an onus on companies to store their own records in case of investigation or litigation.

The London School of Economics published research last year suggesting that the cost of such as scheme could be as much as £2bn.

The Conservative and Liberal Democrat Coalition Agreement had stated that the practice of storing email and online activity would not be continued.

"One of the early and welcome promises of the new government was to 'end the blanket storage of internet and email records'," Isabella Sankey, director of policy at Liberty, told The Daily Telegraph.

"Any move to amass more of our sensitive data and increase powers for processing would amount to a significant U-turn. The terrifying ambitions of a group of senior Whitehall technocrats must not trump the personal privacy of law abiding Britons."