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UK Plan to monitor all internet use


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#1 ΓΛPTΘΓ

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Posted 27 April 2009 - 14:30

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Communications firms are being asked to record all internet contacts between people as part of a modernisation in UK police surveillance tactics.

The home secretary scrapped plans for a database but wants details to be held and organised for security services.

The new system would track all e-mails, phone calls and internet use, including visits to social network sites.

The Tories said the Home Office had "buckled under Conservative pressure" in deciding against a giant database.

Announcing a consultation on a new strategy for communications data and its use in law enforcement, Jacqui Smith said there would be no single government-run database.

But she also said that "doing nothing" in the face of a communications revolution was not an option.

The Home Office will instead ask communications companies - from internet service providers to mobile phone networks - to extend the range of information they currently hold on their subscribers and organise it so that it can be better used by the police, MI5 and other public bodies investigating crime and terrorism.

Ministers say they estimate the project will cost £2bn to set up, which includes some compensation to the communications industry for the work it may be asked to do.

"Communications data is an essential tool for law enforcement agencies to track murderers, paedophiles, save lives and tackle crime," Ms Smith said.

"Advances in communications mean that there are ever more sophisticated ways to communicate and we need to ensure that we keep up with the technology being used by those who seek to do us harm.

"It is essential that the police and other crime fighting agencies have the tools they need to do their job, However to be clear, there are absolutely no plans for a single central store."

'Contact not content'

Communication service providers (CSPs) will be asked to record internet contacts between people, but not the content, similar to the existing arrangements to log telephone contacts.

But, recognising that the internet has changed the way people talk, the CSPs will also be asked to record some third party data or information partly based overseas, such as visits to an online chatroom and social network sites like Facebook or Twitter.

Security services could then seek to examine this data along with information which links it to specific devices, such as a mobile phone, home computer or other device, as part of investigations into criminal suspects.

The plan expands a voluntary arrangement under which CSPs allow security services to access some data which they already hold.

The security services already deploy advanced techniques to monitor telephone conversations or intercept other communications, but this is not used in criminal trials.

Ms Smith said that while the new system could record a visit to a social network, it would not record personal and private information such as photos or messages posted to a page.

"What we are talking about is who is at one end [of a communication] and who is at the other - and how they are communicating," she said.

Existing legal safeguards under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act would continue to apply. Requests to see the data would require top level authorisation within a public body such as a police force. The Home Office is running a separate consultation on limiting the number of public authorities that can access sensitive information or carry out covert surveillance.

'Orwellian'

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said: "I am pleased that the Government has climbed down from the Big Brother plan for a centralised database of all our emails and phone calls.

"However, any legislation that requires individual communications providers to keep data on who called whom and when will need strong safeguards on access.

"It is simply not that easy to separate the bare details of a call from its content. What if a leading business person is ringing Alcoholics Anonymous, or a politician's partner is arranging to hire a porn video?

"There has to be a careful balance between investigative powers and the right to privacy."

Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling said: "The big problem is that the government has built a culture of surveillance which goes far beyond counter terrorism and serious crime. Too many parts of Government have too many powers to snoop on innocent people and that's really got to change.

"It is good that the home secretary appears to have listened to Conservative warnings about big brother databases. Now that she has finally admitted that the public don't want their details held by the State in one place, perhaps she will look at other areas in which the Government is trying to do precisely that."

Guy Herbert of campaign group NO2ID said: "Just a week after the home secretary announced a public consultation on some trivial trimming of local authority surveillance, we have this: a proposal for powers more intrusive than any police state in history.

"Ministers are making a distinction between content and communications data into sound-bite of the year. But it is spurious.

"Officials from dozens of departments and quangos could know what you read online, and who all your friends are, who you emailed, when, and where you were when you did so - all without a warrant."

The consultation runs until 20 July 2009.


I would STRONGLY OPPOSITE that plan, this is effectively tracking what do you do daily, what do you like, etc...
I hate the world becoming like this, hell I may even have more piracy in a Third World Country....

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#2 Dutchygamer

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Posted 27 April 2009 - 14:43

"Big Brother is watching you"
If it's really coming real, you're so fucked. When will they learn that privacy is more important then defending against terrorists :)
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#3 Wizard

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Posted 27 April 2009 - 15:10

Open to massive exploitation and serious security breaches. I have forgotten the number of idiots who have left laptops on trains and in taxis over the last few years.

A stupidly desparate move from a stupidly desparate government.

Most stupid idea ever is most stupid idea ever.

#4 Chyros

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Posted 27 April 2009 - 15:46

I'd like to use this opportunity to use a quote I picked up a few months ago:

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REPENT
THE END IS EXTREMELY FUCKING NIGH

I oh so hope for you Brit chaps this doesn't get pulled through. If it does, it will cause an infinite shitstorm of epic proportions. The breach of privacy would be so massive that you would do best not to use it at all anymore.
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#5 Wizard

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Posted 27 April 2009 - 15:50

View PostChyros, on 27 Apr 2009, 16:46, said:

I oh so hope for you Brit chaps this doesn't get pulled through. If it does, it will cause an infinite shitstorm of epic proportions. The breach of privacy would be so massive that you would do best not to use it at all anymore.

Don't forget everyone in my MSN contacts list would be on this database. And being non-UK residents that would mean your information would be open to substantially more abuse than mine. It would be best served if this never went further than the pages of the BBC website.

#6 Libains

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Posted 27 April 2009 - 16:03

Wizard has completely summed up my thoughts in ever respect here - it's absurd - the possibilities for abusing it are endless, and non-UK residents will have their asses abused to death. Government got backed into a corner by the Tories, and instead of conceding that they had got it wrong, they came up with an even worse plan. Welcome to the world of British Politics: it's a complete mess..

Beyond that I'm just lost for words... How could they think this would be wise? How could they?
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#7 Overdose

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Posted 27 April 2009 - 16:25

I hope this doesn't mean I have to block everyone who's from UK on MSN.
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#8 Dauth

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Posted 27 April 2009 - 16:25

I'm very glad I have no loyalties to Britain, if this comes in I will be leaving the country. They can foot the bill for bringing me up and educating me that an invasion of privacy is a good reason to leave.

#9 Ion Cannon!

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Posted 27 April 2009 - 17:57

Politicians should be trying to gain our favour yet first they increase their pay and now this? How fucking stupid are these morons that run the country.

I second wizards sentiments. How many laptops full of confidential information were lost last year? 30+ IIRC. How can you lose a laptop!!!

The government has never in the past monitored all forms of communication. Its not like they record every face to face conversation that takes place, so why this blanket monitoring. It criminalises people is a breach of privacy and is just more over-exaggeration to counter terrorism. Hopefully my job will involve travelling all over the world so I can leave this mad country.

Instead of spending 2bn pounds on this mad cap scheme use it to pay for more doctors and nurses.

Edited by Ion Cannon!, 27 April 2009 - 17:59.

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#10 Rayburn

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Posted 27 April 2009 - 19:23

Protecting freedom by...abolishing freedom...!? Bravo, government, just bravo...

I'm really sorry for the chaps who will be affected by this. Hopefully, some of those
in charge will come to their senses although I don't see that happen anytime soon...

Edited by Rayburn, 27 April 2009 - 19:39.


#11 D.K.

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Posted 27 April 2009 - 21:32

And I thought that we had idiots sitting in Sabor... Apparently your ones just managed to outmatch ours. Damn, we're lucky our politicians don't know even to set up a proper firewall.
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#12 nip

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Posted 27 April 2009 - 22:49

View PostRayburn, on 27 Apr 2009, 21:23, said:

Protecting freedom by...abolishing freedom...!? Bravo, government, just bravo...

I'm really sorry for the chaps who will be affected by this. Hopefully, some of those
in charge will come to their senses although I don't see that happen anytime soon...

Comfort me, please. We do have it in Germany already. It's called 'Vorratsdatenspeicherung'.

#13 Stinger

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Posted 27 April 2009 - 23:32

I don't see what use this will have in the long run as there is so much information being stacked ad infinitum it becomes impossible to sort through it all.

In this post 9/11 world we live in it seems everyone is a suspect.

Edited by Stinger, 27 April 2009 - 23:40.


#14 CodeCat

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Posted 28 April 2009 - 07:45

Perhaps the time has come for a revolution...
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#15 Wizard

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Posted 28 April 2009 - 07:51

Hardly. It's a very soft, centre left leaning government attempting to strengthen their position on terrorism having failed at pretty much everything else they've done since '97. A government that promised the FIA and failed to deliver now wants more information in it's coffers. They'll be ousted before this is even makes it to a vote in the Commons.

#16 amazin

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Posted 28 April 2009 - 14:23

this is getting borderline Orwellian...

plus this sounds like it will require more spending, and as far as i know, Britain (and the US, unrelated i know) does not have much more money to spend in the first place

Our leaders REALLY need to get their priorities straight

Edited by umm not dachamp, 28 April 2009 - 14:24.


#17 Brad

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Posted 28 April 2009 - 15:05

I believe myself this is one step onto a path which the UK should not follow.

This is - In my opinion, or at least it should be - A massive violation of the human right of privacy, just because they are not monitering the content, it still does not give them the right to moniter the sites we visit.
Not to mention as Wiz pointed out, that this is open to maniplultation and breaches.

I can't believe our goverment is desperate enough to actually consider putting this to action.
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#18 SquigPie

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Posted 14 May 2009 - 20:11

There will come a day were we have to choose between safety and freedom.

Were we either have to submit to the costs of finally feeling safe, were we have to abandon all privacy, choice and hope.

Or we have to choose Koyaanisqatsi, a chaotic life without safety, were rape, murder, death, incest, hatred, war, genocide, violence, overpopulation and corruption are daily things.

Our world, Koyaanisqatsi.

Our goverments work tirelessly to secure our non-freedom.

And And like sheep we simply follow our herders into the slaughterhouse.

What will we choose?

Live a free life in fear or a safe life in slavery?

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As long as the dark foundation of our nature, grim in its all-encompassing egoism, mad in its drive to make that egoism into reality, to devour everything and to define everything by itself, as long as that foundation is visible, as long as this truly original sin exists within us, we have no business here and there is no logical answer to our existence.
Imagine a group of people who are all blind, deaf and slightly demented and suddenly someone in the crowd asks, "What are we to do?"... The only possible answer is, "Look for a cure". Until you are cured, there is nothing you can do.
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#19 Rayburn

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Posted 14 May 2009 - 20:17

How about something in-between like...you know...the kind of life we had before that fateful day in September?
Picking one out of two totally polar extremes hardly ever leads to any favourable outcome.

Edited by Rayburn, 14 May 2009 - 20:18.


#20 SquigPie

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Posted 14 May 2009 - 20:20

There is no between, we either live in a free or non-free world.

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As long as the dark foundation of our nature, grim in its all-encompassing egoism, mad in its drive to make that egoism into reality, to devour everything and to define everything by itself, as long as that foundation is visible, as long as this truly original sin exists within us, we have no business here and there is no logical answer to our existence.
Imagine a group of people who are all blind, deaf and slightly demented and suddenly someone in the crowd asks, "What are we to do?"... The only possible answer is, "Look for a cure". Until you are cured, there is nothing you can do.
And since you don't believe you are sick, there can be no cure.
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#21 Rayburn

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Posted 14 May 2009 - 20:31

I'd rather call it a sliding scale between total freedom and total oppression. Some dictatorships
are still more liberal than others; some democracies are still more authoritarian than others.

#22 SquigPie

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Posted 15 May 2009 - 06:00

Freedom is the freedom to say that 2+2=4, and the freedom to say that 2+2=5.

It's as simple as that

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As long as the dark foundation of our nature, grim in its all-encompassing egoism, mad in its drive to make that egoism into reality, to devour everything and to define everything by itself, as long as that foundation is visible, as long as this truly original sin exists within us, we have no business here and there is no logical answer to our existence.
Imagine a group of people who are all blind, deaf and slightly demented and suddenly someone in the crowd asks, "What are we to do?"... The only possible answer is, "Look for a cure". Until you are cured, there is nothing you can do.
And since you don't believe you are sick, there can be no cure.
- Vladimir Solovyov

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#23 ultimentra

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Posted 15 May 2009 - 06:06

If they think for a second they will be able to really do it then they are wrong. People will find ways around it, especially those with lots of computer know how. There is no way for them to monitor all internet use. It just plainly is not physically possible.
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#24 SquigPie

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Posted 15 May 2009 - 10:39

And even if they do manage to get it up it is going to get hacked within a week.

All those years wasted for a giant database now only composing "lolololololololololololol--->"....

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As long as the dark foundation of our nature, grim in its all-encompassing egoism, mad in its drive to make that egoism into reality, to devour everything and to define everything by itself, as long as that foundation is visible, as long as this truly original sin exists within us, we have no business here and there is no logical answer to our existence.
Imagine a group of people who are all blind, deaf and slightly demented and suddenly someone in the crowd asks, "What are we to do?"... The only possible answer is, "Look for a cure". Until you are cured, there is nothing you can do.
And since you don't believe you are sick, there can be no cure.
- Vladimir Solovyov

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#25 Prophet of the Pimps

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Posted 19 May 2009 - 19:39

Can some one please explain to me the reason why the UK is getting Dumber and dumber by the day. They are like the source of 50% of the most boneheaded ideas from a Developed nation.
Never underestimate a Resourceful Idiot
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