Total Phone and Email Database Proposed In UK

mishmash writes "The Times of London is reporting a proposal for a massive government database holding details of all phone calls, emails, and time spent on the Internet. This is to be justified as being 'part of the fight against crime and terrorism.' Quoting: 'Internet service providers and telecoms companies would hand over the records to the Home Office under plans put forward by officials.' If you want to write to representatives to let them know your views, contact details are available at Write to Them." UK telecoms are already required to keep records of phone calls and text messages for 12 months, accessible by subpoena; the requirement is already slated to expand to records of Internet usage, emails, and VoIP. This new proposal aims to centralize all that information in a single database in the Home Office.

Comments

Re:awesome

[BitterOak]

enjoy reading my encrypted traffic and voip phone calls. Don't forget that in the UK, you must hand over encryption keys on demand or face jail time. This has been the law for some time over there.

Re:You forgot to mention the sheep....

[777a]

Is all of this all down to the British Government or is it coming from the EU? Unfortunately it's both from the UK and EU.

Watching Sky news (one of the two main news stations) earlier today they referred to the data retention law as an EU law, but that isn't entirely correct.

When the UK was president of the EU it brought in Europe wide data retention laws. It was shortly after 7/7 and managed to get enough votes to be passed.

When an EU law is passed the member states implement it in their own way (all member states are required their phone companies / ISP's to log phone / internet data for at least 6 months, some do longer).

So while this is technically an EU law, it was brought into Europe by predominantly by the UK.

Allowing the data to be stored by the government is a new, UK only law.

Re:Seriously, what is wrong with the United Kingdo

[Joce640k]

They already went there, believe me. Go to The Pirate Bay and get the movie "Taking Liberties" - it's a documentary about what the current government has done to the UK.

They have a clip of Tony Blair saying that he knows a whole class of people who will grow up to be be criminals and ought to be registered as such *pre-birth*.

Re:Seriously, what is wrong with the United Kingdo

[IIH]

If you're charged with a crime, you get a DNA sample taken. If it doesn't go to court for whatever reason, or you are not found guilty, the sample is destroyed (unless you've got a prior criminal record)

Completely incorrect. If you are even arrested for a "recordable offence" (which most are) your DNA can be taken, and kept even if you aren't charged, (or even if the arrest was completely baseless). The only place where it is automatically destroyed is in Scotland, which is may be what you are thinking of.