Rather sneakily in April, the now firmly backbenched Jacqui Smith issued a consultation paper on the possibility of getting internet service providers to track all communications data, of everyone. You can read the full story on my other blog, or alternately look at the consultation paper directly. It outlines everything everyone feared about a ‘database’ state; in that it would centralise communications data on a mass scale. Except actually the government is incapable of handling centralised information, so it’s going to make providers (so that’s the private sector) do most of the hard work instead. Really, the document was a kind of begging letter to various ISPs to store and tidily organise the times of suspect calls/e-mails. Oh, and to seek public opinion, but not till right at the back.
The consultation closing date was 20th July, after which the Information Commissioner made some lukewarm comments about the actual necessity and current technological impossibility of implementing the plans. ISP’s (via LINX have also snubbed the plans in a publicly available document here, and analysed by the Register here. Well, there’s hope yet.
Filed under: Comment, Intercept Modernisation Programme
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