Big Brother - the Communications Data Bill

Here is a really worrying bill being pushed through the UK parliament which will give the government the right to keep a track of all our web views and emails.

The Communications Data Bill is UK law, but much of the substance comes from the EU Directive 2006/24/EC, the sub-title of which is "on the retention of data generated or processed in connection with the provision of publiclyavailable electronic communications services or of public communications networks and amending".

The issue is of grave concern if you want to keep you privacy on Internet usage here in the UK, but, as an EU directive we wont be the only country affected.

So what does it mean?

Well, in a fundamental sense, every email within, or coming into or out of the UK will be recorded (sender/recipient and date/time only, at this stage), and websites tracked so that the government, police, and anybody else in the UK that the government deems may be interested will have access to this information.

That last point is important here in the UK, because traditionally the government has hardly been selective in what information it provides to whom, and not just in the form of leaks. Numerous agencies are given rights to view the private information supposedly kept secure about individuals. See my past comments on our DVLA for some examples.

It is worrying, not because you might be sending things you shouldn't, but instead about how that information is used by people who probably dont need access to it. We don't, for example, perform the same operation on our postal mail, yet somehow because it is possible we will do it for Internet traffic.

Maybe we will see a resurgence in our postal services.

Oh, and just after I wrote this, I was reading my sunday paper to find this Passports will be needed to buy mobile phones.

My main question here is why? But then, in many cases, for a contract (pay monthly) phone we already have to provide proof of our ID in the form of credit card statements, utility bill, password or drivers license. What it's not required for is pay-as-you-go (non-contract) phones.

Of course, all of these database of information will be secure - we've never ever lost any information about individual in this country through posting unencrypted CDs or losing laptops, so we have nothing to worry about when it comes to other people accessing this database.

And of course, identity theft is not a problem either, and yet we are expected to hand over (and have copied) documents which identify us and could be used to clone our identities to complete strangers in shops.

These are the same people who, in certain environments, have fitted credit card scanners to clone our credit card details. But of course, credit card details and the pin number system are also completely secure, so that's not a problem either.

To put it simply, we are told to be careful with our identity data, but are expected, at exactly the same time, to provide information to a government with a terrible history for keeping it safe and secure. And they see no problem with this.