Immediate [not an April fool]

The Sunday Times this morning confirmed [1] earlier reports [2] that the government plans to force internet service providers to keep records of all browsing, email, gaming and chat use, and to make those records available to the authorities. It is now revealed the plan is to go further and allow real time snooping by the intelligence services. It will take place without a warrant, as most official surveillance already does [3].

Campaign group NO2ID [3] has previously pointed out that this scheme is ‘leapfrogging China’ and will ensure Britain remains the most watched society on earth.[4]

The coalition government appears to have reversed its position on privacy against the database state. This news follows a little-reported announcement by Francis Maude [5] that the coalition will ‘look again’ at broad data-sharing powers for government bodies abandoned by Jack Straw in 2009 [6]. Those plans would have allowed ministers to set aside confidentiality whenever it was convenient to them to use any information held about members of the public for new purposes.

Guy Herbert, General Secretary of NO2ID said:

Astonishing brass neck from the Home Office, attempting to feed us reheated leftovers from the authoritarian end of the Blair administration. It is not very far from a bug in every living room that can be turned on and turned off at official whim. Whatever you are doing online, whoever you are in contact with, you will never know when you are being watched. And nobody else will either, because none of it will need a warrant.

Put aside privacy – and the government has – the scheme is an astonishing waste of money. What problem does it solve that is worth billions?

-ENDS-

Notes for editors:

1) ‘Government to Snoop on all emails’ – David Leppard, Sunday Times 1 April 2012
www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/…/article1007226.ece (£)
… internet companies will be told to install thousands of pieces of hardware to allow GCHQ… to scrutinise ‘on demand’ every phone call made, text message and email sent and website accessed in real time.

2) Eg. ‘Phone and email records to be stored in new spy plan’ – Sunday Telegraph 19 Feb 2012, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet/9090617/Phone-and-email-records-to-be-stored-in-new-spy-plan.html

3) The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 allows hundreds of official bodies to authorise themselves to use surveillance – powers used more than half a million times a year already

4) NO2ID is the national campaign against the database state, the tendency to try to use computers to manage society by maintaining state files on people. See www.no2id.net

5) ‘Home Office prepares to announce total surveillance plan’ – NO2ID 19 Feb 2012

http://press.mu.no2id.net/2012-02/home-office-prepares-to-announce-total-surveillance-plan/

That release contains much more background information.

6) Keynote speech to the Information Commissioner’s Conference, 6 MAR 2012

http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/news/information-commissioners-conference-francis-maude-keynote-speech

In May we will publish proposals that will make data sharing easier – and, in particular, we will revisit the recommendations of the Walport-Thomas Review that would make it easier for legitimate requests for data sharing to be agreed with a view to considering their implementation.

For further information, or for immediate or future interview, please contact:

Guy Herbert (General Secretary, general.secretary@no2id.net) on 07956 544 308
OR
James Baker (Campaigns Manager, campaigns@no2id.net) on 07817605 162

For immediate release

It is reported [1] that the Government is on the verge of announcing a plan to force internet service providers to keep records of all browsing, email, gaming and chat use, and to make those records available to the authorities. This is a revival of an old plan, last publicly considered during the previous Labour administration [2]. Both Coalition parties claimed to be doubtful in opposition. In January 2010 the Conservatives promised a review [3] that would ‘develop a clear statement of purpose for each [Government database] in line with the principles of proportionality and necessity’.

This scheme amounts in part to a huge extension of something already in place, the Data Retention Directive, which NO2ID [4] and many other groups continue to oppose[5], and which was forced by the Home Office through EU institutions, evading parliamentary control. The other part accounts for the common estimates of a £2 Billion cost to the public purse: installing equipment to get at the data at the touch of a button.

As well as opposing this plan, NO2ID is calling for a revision of the legislation surrounding surveillance, to require a judicial warrant and reasonable suspicion of actual crimes. Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 dozens of organisations (including quangos and government departments [6]) have the power to access the limited communications data already collected, and need only their own authority to do so. The existing powers are used more than half a million times a year. [7]

Guy Herbert, General Secretary of NO2ID said:

It looks like the Home Office is setting out to leapfrog China and gain the UK an unenviable position as the most monitored society in history. The automatic recording and tracing of everything done online by anyone – of almost all our communications and much of our personal lives, shopping and reading – just in case it might come in useful to the authorities later, is beyond the dreams of any past totalitarian regime, and beyond the current capabilities of even the most oppressive states.

The vague assertion that all this is needed to deal with the usual bogeyman, terrorism, is worthless. It is hard to imagine any threat that is serious enough to justify it. But something that aims to make surveillance easy will create a demand for surveillance. Unless it is subject to proper controls from the beginning, then the pretexts for access will multiply. That would mean the end of privacy.

-ENDS-

Notes for editors:

1) ‘Phone and email records to be stored in new spy plan’ – Sunday Telegraph 19 Feb 2012
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet/9090617/Phone-and-email-records-to-be-stored-in-new-spy-plan.html

2) ‘Internet black boxes to record every email and website visit’ – Daily telegraph 5 Nov 2008
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3384743/Internet-black-boxes-to-record-every-email-and-website-visit.html

3) ‘Tories outline plans to review comms database’ – Kable, 18 Jan 2010
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/networking/2010/01/18/tories-outline-plans-to-review-comms-database-39994500/

4) NO2ID is the national campaign against the database state, the tendency to try to use computers to manage society by maintaining state files on people.

5) For background see NO2ID Press release, June 2011: http://press.mu.no2id.net/2011-06/police-knowing-your-web-use-doesnt-stop-crime-surprise/

6) See http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2010/480/schedule/2/made

7) See for details the report “Freedom From Suspicion” – Justice, Nov 2011
Downloadable from http://www.justice.org.uk/resources.php/305/freedom-from-suspicion

For further information, or for immediate or future interview, please contact:

Guy Herbert (General Secretary, general.secretary@no2id.net) on 07956 544 308
OR
James Baker (Campaigns Manager, campaigns@no2id.net) on 07817605 162

The EU has announced proposals for sweeping changes to data protection law, with a common regulatory framework to apply to the whole continent [1]. Campaign group NO2ID [2] urged caution.

The plans (which may take three years to come into effect and will evolve before they do), make much of stiffer penalties for lost data. But NO2ID points out gains for individuals are limited, while the ’streamlined’ regulations could readily lead to more use of personal information – by governments as well as corporations.

Guy Herbert, NO2ID’s national coordinator, said:

There’s much that sounds good in these proposals, but we need to be careful. This is not a privacy law. Small improvements in individual rights are offset by an urge to ‘boost the digital economy’ – that is, sell your life – and to make life easier for bureaucrats.

In particular, the new huge penalties for commercial cock-ups are a distraction. They are the rarity. It is the routine, lawful, intentional, possibly even competent, trafficking in personal information that we have to worry about. More data protection won’t protect your data from the prying eyes of the database state.

-ENDS-

Notes for editors

1) Commission proposes a comprehensive reform of the data protection rules. 25 Jan 2012
http://ec.europa.eu/justice/newsroom/data-protection/news/120125_en.htm
‘The European Commission has today proposed a comprehensive reform of the EU’s 1995 data protection rules to strengthen online privacy rights and boost Europe’s digital economy. Technological progress and globalisation have profoundly changed the way our data is collected, accessed and used. In addition, the 27 EU Member States have implemented the 1995 rules differently, resulting in divergences in enforcement. A single law will do away with the current fragmentation and costly administrative burdens, leading to savings for businesses of around €2.3 billion a year. The initiative will help reinforce consumer confidence in online services, providing a much needed boost to growth, jobs and innovation in Europe.’

2) NO2ID is the UK-wide non-partisan campaign against the database state. See http://www.no2id.net/dbstate.php for a list of ‘database state’ initiatives that NO2ID is actively opposing.

–

For more information, or for immediate or future interview, please contact Guy Herbert (General Secretary, general.secretary@no2id.net) on 07956 544 308.