NO2ID

The government’s climbdown on a central communications database is welcome, says Ian Brown. But plans are still afoot to gather more and more Internet users’ details

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has announced she is stepping back from plans for a central database containing details of UK citizens’ communications, recognising that there is ‘a delicate balance between privacy and security’. Public consultation on the £12 billion ‘Interception Modernisation Programme’ had been pushed back several times since last year amid growing public concern over the government’s surveillance powers.

However, the Home Office consultation document published yesterday, ‘Protecting the public in a changing communications environment’ shows they are moving ahead with plans to require the UK’s Internet Service Providers to gather more data on their customers’ activities than ever before.

They would allow real-time government access to all communications. This level of monitoring would be unprecedented in the democratic world.

The European Union’s data protection commissioners resolved in 2006 that ‘the decision to retain communication data for the purpose of combating serious crime is an unprecedented one with a historical dimension. It encroaches into the daily life of every citizen and may endanger the fundamental values and freedoms all European citizens enjoy and cherish.’

There is little meaningful oversight of data access, which is signed off by senior officials for a range of purposes that go far beyond the investigation of serious crime.

While the government’s retreat from a central database of everyone’s online activities is to be welcomed, we should not lose sight of the invasiveness (and expense) of their remaining proposals. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling said today that ‘too many parts of Government have too many powers to snoop on innocent people and that’s really got to change’. The UK should not be leading democracies and autocracies alike in wiretapping the Internet.