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Tracking calls, texts and emails is vital to fighting crime, says DPP
Martin Bentham, Home Affairs Editor19 Nov 2009
New powers to track the email, text message, phone and computer activity of every citizen are "vital" for law enforcement, Britain's top prosecutor warns.
Keir Starmer QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions, said such data often provided essential information about links between suspects and could be crucial in proving their presence at crime scenes.
Without new legislation, he added, "rapid technological changes" might undermine the ability of police and prosecutors to gather evidence for court cases involving "many" serious offenders. His warning, delivered in a submission by the Crown Prosecution Service to the Home Office, will disappoint critics who argue that the planned powers will be an unjustified extension of government "snooping".
Ministers insist the proposals - under which internet, telecom and other firms will be required to keep records of their customers' communications - are needed to combat terrorism and other crime. The new powers to trace data would also cover social networking and gaming sites.
Mr Starmer insists the proposals strike an "appropriate balance" between individuals' right to privacy and the needs of national security - and that proposed safeguards to prevent misuse of the power to access data were "sufficient at present".
He said: "Communications data is often a vital tool in establishing the necessary connections between suspects and it can place suspects at specific locations.
"The CPS works closely with police to build evidentially strong cases. Many of our prosecutions for serious offences are based on strands of circumstantial evidence which often include communications data."
The plans are intended to plug what ministers argue could become a dangerous gap in the ability of the police and security services to track activities of terrorists and other criminals. Detectives can access phone and email records of suspects but social networking, gaming websites and instant messaging are much harder to track.
The Home Office wants all communications firms to store records of their customers' activities for a year in a £2billion scheme. It would ensure that criminals' contacts and movements can be traced. The records will not contain content of calls or messages.
Communications data was used to secure convictions of the killers of Shakilus Townsend, 16, lured to his death by Samantha Joseph, also 16, in a "honey-trap" in Thornton Heath. Phone records proved his killers were at the scene. Phone and email traffic records also played an important role in securing the conviction of the three men jailed for life for plotting to blow up jets flying between Heathrow and the US in August 2006.
The planned powers
Internet and telecom firms will store data about customers for police or other public bodies.
For a phone call, it would include the number called and the time and location, but not the conversation. The same applies for email — the sending and receiving addresses would be saved but not the message.
Records from chatrooms, instant messaging and social networking and gaming sites will also be kept, responding to evidence that criminals use them to communicate.
The plans are technically difficult and expensive to implement as they require companies to store data that originates from other firms.
The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act will govern the powers. Data will only be accessed when authorised by a senior officer and when proportionate and necessary.
Reader views (12)
Chris, London - I don't know: let's ask the 6 million Jews who were killed in the holocaust after their details were flagged up on a database just like this one . . .
- Roz, France, 20/11/2009 10:06
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Give it a rest. As always, if you are not doing anything wrong, you've got nothing to worry about have you.
- Chris, London
OK Chris, when the idiot looking at this information gets it wrong and puts YOUR name to it and you're arrested, YOU have to prove you've done nothing wrong. Lets see how you like it then. Same with a DNA database, when information is wrongly used and YOUR name comes up, then you have to prove YOUR innocence.
- Brian, London, 20/11/2009 09:12
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Since when does the CPS "nail" criminals ?
- Cm, London, 20/11/2009 08:27
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As long as it applies to MPs too, I'm all for it. Although after Brown's treatment by The Sun last week, maybe he will go off the idea of recording phone calls?
- Nobby Clark, Perth, the Scottish one, 19/11/2009 16:25
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Any thinking person can see the transparent lies in the tracking proposal, in that GCHQ and the NSA are ALREADY scanning and saving ALL electronic communications, and considering all the hundreds of thousands (millions now?) of ILlegal immigrants we have here and who knows how many are terrorists or potential ones, and who can bring in mobile phones from overseas for one off use, and you can see this is directed as usual, at the innocent, not to mention the fact that ANYBODY who believes NOT wanting to know the CONTENTS of messages should look out of their window to see flying pigs.
Oh, I forgot: perhaps Starmer could improve the CPS's abysmal 'success' record in getting prosecutions of those cases referred to it by the police.
- Ralph, London, 19/11/2009 16:11
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The Thought horrifies me we have always had crime and we always will why do we have to lose are privacy and our independents just for the very small proportion of people in crime. People like Keir Starmer just look at life with blinkers on with no consideration for the real implications of what they are saying. We cannot go down this big brother route.
- Andrew Stirling, london, 19/11/2009 14:11
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Give it a rest. As always, if you are not doing anything wrong, you've got nothing to worry about have you.
- Chris, London, 19/11/2009 13:52
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I thought these laws were brought in to help fight against terror? No longer it seems which kind of proves the point. You give the government a little, they take a lot and they won't stop taking until we are all kow-towed living under the kosh in the police state that is slowly starting to unfold and become visible. But hey! If you've nothing to hide you've nothing to fear, right?
- Paul, South East England, 19/11/2009 13:48
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Stephen: hence they're getting rid of history.
- Roz, France, 19/11/2009 11:48
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That's exactly what the Nazis said... (Citizens had to give census data, which was computerised so that later Jews could be identified) and the East Berliners... The lives of others was a warning, not a blueprint for this Government.
No Government should be allowed to do this. All Governments are corrupt and given the abysmal record of this Government on protecting citizens data this is simply an outrage.
If you believe a citizen is a terrorist then use the existing laws (which are very broad). Spying on everyone is so open to abuse, with the risks of such abuse (identity theft, organised crime etc) much higher for citizens if such a crazy unregulated system is allowed to be introduced.
History shows that Government cannot be trusted to hold this data.
- Stephen, Swindon, 19/11/2009 10:52
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Thankfully, most citizens are so stupified by their diet of TV and lies that they will actually believe that their safety depends upon the abolition of privacy!
- Neil, London, London UK, 19/11/2009 10:01
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I shouldn't bother. Keeping track and records of billions of IT communications is simply not worth it. Hckers and geeks out there will do it for you for free and spill the beans and whistle blow. A reward or bounty would be an incentive. a whole new industry could grow up.
- Dhan Raj, Basildon, 19/11/2009 09:04
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