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Big Brother database recording all our calls, texts and e-mails will 'ruin British way of life'
Last updated at 09:42am on 16.07.08
Plans for a massive database snooping on the entire population were condemned yesterday as a ‘step too far for the British way of life’.
In an Orwellian move, the Home Office is proposing to detail every phone call, e-mail, text message, internet search and online purchase in the fight against terrorism and other serious crime.
But the privacy watchdog, Information Commissioner Richard Thomas, warned that the public’s traditional freedoms were under grave threat from creeping state surveillance.
Big Brother: Critics warn our surveillance culture is going too far
Apart from the Government’s inability to hold data securely, he said the proposals raised ‘grave questions’.
‘Do the risks we face provide justification for such a scheme in the first place? Do we want the state to have details of more and more aspects of our private lives?
‘Whatever the benefits, would such a scheme amount to excessive surveillance? Would this be a step too far for the British way of life?’
It is thought the scheme would allow the police or MI5 to access the exact time when a phone call was made, the number dialled, the length of the call and, in the case of mobile phones, the location of the handset to within an accuracy of a few hundred yards.
Similarly for e-mails, it would provide details of when they were sent and who the recipients were. Police recovering a suspect’s computer would then be able to trawl through hard-drive records and recover particular messages. The content of telephone calls could not be recovered unless they were being intercepted at the time.
Mr Thomas’s warnings were backed by privacy campaigners, who claimed such Big Brother powers would give Government agencies unprecedented abilities to trawl through intimate details of ordinary people’s private lives at will.
He used the launch of his annual report to speak out after ministers signalled their intentions in their programme of legislation earlier this year, describing the new Bill as ‘modifying procedures for acquiring communications data’.
Warning: Information Commissioner Richard Thomas
There are fears that the data will be shared with foreign governments – such as the Americans demanding personal details of air passengers – accessed by internet hackers or lost by bungling civil servants.
Opponents pointed out that town halls are already using extraordinary surveillance powers under the controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act to investigate minor issues such as littering, or checking whether parents are abusing school catchment area rules, and they could be given access to almost unthinkable levels of personal data under the new scheme.
Currently police and MI5 can access customer records stored by telephone companies, but only with a warrant to examine individual accounts.
Mr Thomas said: ‘I am absolutely clear that the targeted and duly-authorised interception of the communications of suspects can be invaluable in the fight against terrorism and other serious crime.
‘But there needs to be the fullest public debate about the justification for, and implications of, a specially created database – potentially accessible to a wide range of law enforcement authorities – holding details of everyone’s telephone and internet communications.
'Do we really want the police, security services and other organs of the state to have access to more and more aspects of our private lives?’
Opposition MPs said the Government’s dismal records on safeguarding private data – most notably the loss of the entire child benefit database holding millions of people’s financial details – showed it was incapable of safeguarding such a vast volume of information safely, and the scheme should be dropped immediately.
An estimated 3billion emails are sent in Britain every day and last year 57billion text messages were sent.
The Home Office yesterday defended the need to keep its surveillance powers up to date with changing internet technology, and said full details of the plans would be published this year as part of a new Communications Data Bill.
Officials said the internet was rapidly revolutionising communications and it was vital for surveillance powers to keep up with technology in order to fight serious crime and terrorism.
DNA database
Britain's crime-fighting DNA database was the world’s first, in 1995, and is now the world’s largest.
Originally samples were taken from those arrested but destroyed if they were not convicted. Today anyone who is arrested - even if innocent - has DNA taken without consent, even if it has nothing to do with the case. It is added to the database, and stays there forever. It is virtually impossible to have it removed.
Unsurprisingly, new entries are being added at the rate of more than a million a year.
Number plate checks
Police forces use hundreds of Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras across the UK, some at fixed sites and some in cars.
Computers are able to compare numbers with a national database of cars which may be stolen, or whose owners are wanted for questioning.
Each check takes around four seconds.
Since last year, the Government has been developing a central database which also records the details every time a car passes an ANPR camera, anywhere in Britain.
Reader views (20)
The "War against Terror" is a war conducted by terrorists (the government) against the people (us). There is a war on freedom, a war on truth, a war on privacy and a war on justice. There is a war on children (compulsory vaccination) and a war on common sense. The war on democracy was won years ago - we have no democracy. Thanks to the "If you've got nothing to hide you've got nothing to fear" mentality, we have no right to privacy any longer.
- Neil, london uk, Airstrip ONE .
Neil... thank god you have your eyes open like some of the rest of us and can see the truth of what is happening all around us.
I'm genuinely amazed at people like Martin from Crystal Palace and their naivety. Or does he work for the security services and is paid to post pro surveillance stuff on any website with a partly dissident voice I wonder?
I recently moved house and called my local borough to inform them of the move and ask for a finalised council tax bill. The lady asked for my forwarding address and when I told her it was out of the borough she asked for it again. I again told her its out the borough and of no consequence to her to which she replied "Well if you have nothing to hide you have no reason no to tell me"
I despair, I really really do.
And those of you who think the Tories wont continue this are just plain dumb! Its the Govt, who cares what party they are.
- Me, London, UK
Who on earth has given these people the right to snoop on us like this? When we faced imminent invasion by a Fascist dictator the government took less draconian measures than this bunch of Stalinists are against a few extremists. This has to stop.
- Mark, London
They will use the "War On Terror" as an excuse for an amnesty on illegal immigrants.
That will give them a potential extra couple of million votes come election.
- Chris, London (Whats left of it)
Seems like labour have bowed to the inevitable...they are going to get well and truly whipped at the next election. They are putting through hugely unpopular measures like this and the increased car tax because the KNOW they cannot be any more unpopular than they already are. You thought that they were arrogant before? Just watch all the other hugely unpopular measures they implement before their inevitable demise
- Sue, london
"Good. I have nothing to hide and it might educate those that are listening. People nowadays are just too sensitive. If you cant say anything normal or nice on emails or texts, then don't say anything at all. "
How naive can you get? What on earth makes you think that your definition of "normal or nice" matches that of whoever's investigating your communications on behalf of the government?
"Britain is too full of gossipers and slanderers. If you are going to say anything bad expect to be pulled up for it."
In other words, you support the abolition of freedom of speech.
Sorry, Martin, but you're a credulous fool - and I don't expect to be "pulled up for it", as it's a statement of evidence-backed fact.
- Michael, London
Sorry to be idealistic, but know what? If we all talked to each other face to face a bit more (instead of down a wire/typing/on the hop while we attend to 'more pressing things') none of this would be an issue. With technological convenience and advance comes, invariably, restriction - about which I don't know enough to have a hard and fast view. What about if, instead of all this talk of Big Brother, we all made a pledge to try to catch up with our real family and friends FACE TO FACE a bit more. You know, nobody listening in except those we know, etc? Technology has become our worst enemy for reasons far closer to home.
- Mel, Near London
Good. I have nothing to hide and it might educate those that are listening. People nowadays are just too sensitive. If you cant say anything normal or nice on emails or texts, then don't say anything at all. Britain is too full of gossipers and slanderers. If you are going to say anything bad expect to be pulled up for it.
- Martin, crystal palace
For: Nu-Labour Read: Nineteen Eighty-Four
- Teddy, Islington, London
The more things like this the UK government gets up to, the more some wonder if the terrorists aren't actually correct in much of what they say, which then leads to weaker minded types believing the more extreme nonsense.
So the sad reality is, they're creating the terrorists in this 'fight against terrorism'.
- Threaded, Roskilde, Denmark
"Similarly for e-mails, it would provide details of when they were sent and who the recipients were. ... There are fears that the data will be shared with foreign governments – such as the Americans"
If you're on a US-owned service like Hotmail, the CIA are probably reading them already!
- Tonyb, Twickenham
Is there any truth to the rumour that the government put in a bulk order for DVDs of the Oscar-winning film 'The Lives of Others' (a brilliant study of life in Communist East Germany), cut out some of the more contentious bits (such as the surveillance officer inconveniently developing a conscience), and screened the rest as a staff training video?
- Michael, London
And I suppose this will work both ways, so that when the government sell more of the country and the population down the river we can get the full low down on what was said? I don't think so, yet Brown and his mob are the biggest terror threat to the country.
- Paul, London
I wonder if my grandfather would have bothered to fight the Nazis if he'd have known what the UK would be like in 60 or so years.
- Dave, london
The "War against Terror" is a war conducted by terrorists (the government) against the people (us). There is a war on freedom, a war on truth, a war on privacy and a war on justice. There is a war on children (compulsory vaccination) and a war on common sense. The war on democracy was won years ago - we have no democracy. Thanks to the "If you've got nothing to hide you've got nothing to fear" mentality, we have no right to privacy any longer.
- Neil, london uk, Airstrip ONE .
This country won the war against the Nazis and beat IRA terrorism without the need for such a mass of information to be stored by the government on the British people. Also, I have no confidence in the ability of government to either maintain accurate records or indeed to keep those records in a safe place. The track record with incompetent blunders at the Inland Revenue and NHS speaks for itself.
- Steve Chambers, London
Time for a change of government and we must also limit the terms of Prime Minister and not let any one run this nation, unless the person was voted in, not the party.
- Brandon Thomas, London UK
...but of course this Data Communications Bill is simply the implementation of the EU Directive which no party in power (Labour or Tory) can avoid implementing. A Directive is an Order and even in the event that every MP voted against it, it would still have to be enacted on pain of fines and of parliament 'breaking the law'...but stories on these issues practically always fail to mention where our laws now are really coming from.
- Damian Hockney, London, UK
The only person who I was at school with and who wanted to be a police officer was hated by everybody as a control freak and a bully. That may or may not tell the rest of us something.
- Mikko Takala, Drumnadrochit, Scotland
two things are for sure. We will not get a vote on it and it will be sneaked in via the back door.
- Jimbob, Kensington
The public have been duped into believing all this is necessary to "fight terrorism". This is an excuse for government to re-exert control and the failure of the police to do their job properly. we should be asking why after £billions extra of our money has been spent - we still need more and more databases.
- Josh, london
