Plan to monitor all internet use

Communications firms are being asked to record all internet contacts between people as part of a modernisation in UK police surveillance tactics.

The home secretary scrapped plans for a database but wants details to be held and organised for security services.

The new system would track all e-mails, phone calls and internet use, including visits to social network sites.

Ministers say police need new tools to fight crime but opposition MPs and campaigners have raised privacy fears.

Announcing a consultation on a new strategy for communications data and its use in law enforcement, Jacqui Smith said there would be no single government-run database.


Communications data is an essential tool for law enforcement agencies to track murderers and paedophiles, save lives and tackle crime

Jacqui Smith
Home Secretary
But she also said that "doing nothing" in the face of a communications revolution was not an option.

The Home Office will instead ask communications companies - from internet service providers to mobile phone networks - to extend the range of information they currently hold on their subscribers and organise it so that it can be better used by the police, MI5 and other public bodies investigating crime and terrorism.

Ministers say they estimate the project will cost £2bn to set up, which includes some compensation to the communications industry for the work it may be asked to do.

"Communications data is an essential tool for law enforcement agencies to track murderers, paedophiles, save lives and tackle crime," Ms Smith said.

"Advances in communications mean that there are ever more sophisticated ways to communicate and we need to ensure that we keep up with the technology being used by those who seek to do us harm.

"It is essential that the police and other crime fighting agencies have the tools they need to do their job, However to be clear, there are absolutely no plans for a single central store."

'Contact not content'

Communication service providers (CSPs) will be asked to record internet contacts between people, but not the content, similar to the existing arrangements to log telephone contacts.


REASONS TO CHANGE WHAT CAN BE KEPT
More communication via computers rather than phones
Companies won't always keep all data all the time
Anonymity online masks criminal identities
More online services provided from abroad
Data held in many locations and difficult to find
Source: Home Office consultation


But, recognising that the internet has changed the way people talk, the CSPs will also be asked to record some third party data or information partly based overseas, such as visits to an online chatroom and social network sites like Facebook or Twitter.

Security services could then seek to examine this data along with information which links it to specific devices, such as a mobile phone, home computer or other device, as part of investigations into criminal suspects.

The plan expands a voluntary arrangement under which CSPs allow security services to access some data which they already hold.

The security services already deploy advanced techniques to monitor telephone conversations or intercept other communications, but this is not used in criminal trials.

Ms Smith said that while the new system could record a visit to a social network, it would not record personal and private information such as photos or messages posted to a page.

"What we are talking about is who is at one end [of a communication] and who is at the other - and how they are communicating," she said.

Existing legal safeguards under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act would continue to apply. Requests to see the data would require top level authorisation within a public body such as a police force. The Home Office is running a separate consultation on limiting the number of public authorities that can access sensitive information or carry out covert surveillance.

'Orwellian'

Liberal Democrats last year dubbed suggestions of a giant database "Orwellian" - and Ms Smith said she recognised the civil liberty concerns.


DATA CONSULTATION


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But shadow home secretary Chris Grayling said: "Everywhere we look, the Government seems to be building a database to track one aspect of our lives or another. We must not allow ourselves to become a Big Brother society."

Guy Herbert of campaign group NO2ID said: "Just a week after the Home Secretary announced a public consultation on some trivial trimming of local authority surveillance, we have this: a proposal for powers more intrusive than any police state in history.

"Ministers are making a distinction between content and communications data into sound-bite of the year. But it is spurious.

"Officials from dozens of departments and quangos could know what you read online, and who all your friends are, who you emailed, when, and where you were when you did so - all without a warrant."

The consultation runs until 20 July 2009.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8020039.stm

Room 101.....nuff said.

Not a happy chappy! Hope this doesn't fiddle with my internet casino scam

Its an invasion of privacy, in my book. Too much of a Big Brother thing going on. Besides, its not like people are going to email each other saying "I'm going to murder Bob J Smith at 41 Some House Somewhere at precisely 5:03pm. Lets hope the Police aren't there".
I reckon it's the MPs wanting to find out new Porn addresses they've not encountered before...

I hate Jacqui Smith...

surely people come here to announce murders etc.

r8 long story short about me i have slight dyslexia so reeding that for me would take about 3 hours (u think im kiddin) just askin but will this affect our little fury corner of the net or are we too fury andout of the way for them to evan bother

Jacqui Smith's husband would love that job - think of all the porn you'd have to wade through to find anything useful!

ROBAFET wrote:surely people come here to announce murders etc.

Well I am going to murder Alan Shearer if he keeps Newcastle up, you heard it here first!!! And then T-Bag him of course!

Being as I'm a guest in your fine country, I have no say in politics. But I strongly encourage you all to fight these measures. Average citizens need to be able to go about their affairs without the gov't knowing everything they get up to. It just ain't right. There, I said my piece. Now, to go build a nuclear bomb with these cool instructions I downloaded when I hacked into the JPL! :2111: