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Story URL: http://www.silicon.com/publicsector/0,3800010403,39226414,00.htm

Critics attack gov't email, phone database plan
UK "sleepwalking into a surveillance society"

By Nick Heath

Published: Tuesday 20 May 2008

All email, blogs, instant messaging and VoIP calls could be monitored under government proposals - but critics warn the plans go too far.

As of last September telecoms providers must keep all text and phone call records for up to two years under an EU directive, and this is to be rolled out to include all online traffic by 2009 at the latest.

These can be accessed by national authorities to help in a criminal investigation.

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A spokeswoman for the Home Office described how the draft Communications Data Bill could broaden the scope of records demanded under the EU directive.

She said: "We are looking at the wider provision, there are a huge number of communications that could be covered by it, email, text messages, blogs."

A Home Office statement explains the difficulty faced by law enforcers in monitoring modern communications.

It says: "Many people use a wide variety of communication methods which were unavailable even 15 years ago to contact each other and to exchange information, for instance email, instant messaging, blogs and social network sites.

"We are at the very early stages of deciding how to update the law to allow public authorities to continue to obtain and have access to communications data essential for counter-terrorism and investigation of crime purposes."

It says that ministers have yet to make any decision on whether a central database will be included in the draft bill.

But the Home Office insists that any database would not keep the contents of emails and web traffic - only information on who's been emailing or phoning who and which sites have been visited.

But Gus Hosein, senior fellow at Privacy International and fellow at the London School of Economics, said that this "simple" traffic data would be a "map of every individual's life".

And Jonathan Bamford, assistant information commissioner, warned in a statement: "We are sleepwalking into a surveillance society.

"We are not aware of any justification for the state to hold every UK citizen's phone and internet records. We have real doubts that such a measure can be justified, or is proportionate or desirable."

The UK currently has a voluntary system of data retention that asks telecoms providers to keep subscriber information and phone data for 12 months and basic email, web and text data for six months.

The Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA) has been consulting with the government over the draft bill.

An ISPA spokesman said: "We want to know more about the government's intentions regarding 'modifying the procedures for acquiring communications data'."

Full details of the draft Communications Data Bill will be released later this year.