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New anti-terrorist law is a lose-lose scenario for IT
We must learn to use technology to our advantage

By Brian White

Published: Wednesday 26 October 2005

The anti-terrorism legislation under review by parliament could ruin the UK's changes of becoming a top place to do ebusiness - and thus hand terrorists a victory. We can and should do better, says Brian White.

The proposed new legislation again shows that the British civil servants do not understand the technological changes that are happening in the global economy. They are like Canute's advisers telling him he can hold back the sea.

And some of their proposals - if implemented undiluted - could have a disastrous consequence for our economic future.

The proposed requirements in the current terrorist legislation before parliament, for instance, will severely damage the Prime Minister's repeated wish to make the UK the best place to do ebusiness.

What makes these proposals worse is that we have been here before in 2001 with the Regulatory Investigatory Powers Act.

That time we managed to turn what was a potentially ruinous piece of legislation into a very workable set of procedures. In 2001, like now, there was the suggestion that any policeman anywhere could demand data from a communications service provider (CSP) without producing any reason why and expect the CSP to provide it.

We got the Home Office to recognise the potential security flaws in that proposal - no CSP could be sure who was requesting information and the request could be duplicated again and again by each section in each police force.

By introducing a single point of contact and working with the industry, the police authorities turned this into a very productive relationship - as Operation Ore against child pornography showed.

Now we risk ruining that good work. Yet again we confuse passing a law with taking action against a problem or proper implementation of the laws we already have.

The real problem is that the senior civil service has a list of options they wheel out for every event in the hope that some minister will accept them. They don't really engage with the root causes of the problem nor do they understand the business impact of their proposals.

Most times that is not a problem but when the damage is to our technology companies - and our competitors in other countries will not be saddled with these overheads - then it is time to say to the government they need to recognise that this blunderbuss approach to asymmetrical warfare is counterproductive.

By hurting our industries in the name of the fight against terrorism, it is the terrorist who wins.

The only risk to free society is a totalitarian siege economy. A modern, open, global trading nation will always be vulnerable and that is part of the price we pay for our prosperity and civil liberties.

We must be eternally vigilant and use our technology to combat these forces - not shut out the world. The terrorists want us to overreact and this legislation is doing that to the detriment of some of the key wealth generators of our economy.

If not amended we will be handing our competitors an advantage and the terrorists a victory they don't deserve.

Brian White is a business advisor and former MP for Milton Keynes North East. When an MP, he was treasurer of the Parliamentary ICT Committee and an officer of the All Party Internet Group.