Slashdot Mirror
UK Email Retention Plan Technically Flawed
deltaromeo points out a BBC report calling the UK's law requiring ISPs to retain users' emails for at least a year an "attack on rights." The article also points out financial and technical flaws with the plan (which we first discussed in October). TechCrunch goes a step further, detailing how it conflicts with other governmental goals. Quoting:
"...with one hand the government seeks to lock down the British Internet with an iron fist, while at the same time telling us it is boosting innovation and business online. It is quite clearly blind to the fact that one affects the other. Are we also expected to think that the consumers using online services are not going to be put off from engaging in the boom of 'sharing' that Web 2.0 created? How would you feel if every Twitter you sent, every video uploaded, was to be stored and held against you in perpetuity? That may not happen, but the mere suggestion that your email is no longer private would serve to kill the UK population's relish for new media stone dead, and with it large swathes of the developing online economy."
There's something deeply wrong with a country's attitude to privacy when its people have to turn to the US for better protection.
The only requirement is to keep the logs for a year, from/to/time/date. Their thoughts (rightly or wrongly) is they want to be able to bring email inline with telephone records, where they can find out who called who and when - but not what you spoke about (we'll leave that to Echelon).
Here are some links for you guys to check out. Please get out there and get involved: The Open Rights Group look to promote your rights in a digital age: http://www.openrightsgroup.org/ Tom Watson (a labour cabinet minister who has a blog) recently encouraged debate about a proposal by the culture secretary Andy Burnham concerning internet censorship. Here is a link to that post, and be sure to bring up this is issue and the proposed issue of a wider internet database: http://www.tom-watson.co.uk/2008/12/andy-burnham-and-internet-site-classification/ Try getting in contact with the Home Office directly and make your views heard: Address: Home Office, Direct Communications Unit, 2 Marsham Street, London SW1P 4DF. Tel: 020 7035 4848 Email: public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk The Labour Party can be contacted at: Address: The Labour Party, Eldon House, Regent Centre, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE3 3PW. Tel: 08705 900 200 And above all else, keep up the pressure. Governments are concerned with one thing and one thing only. Power. If they realise this is an issue that could cost them an election, they will have very little option but to rethink. Thank You.
Really, I don't think most people will care. If a nice leaflet/broadcast/website from the government explains "it's to catch terrorists" and "it's to catch really super big evil criminals" - most people will say "well I am not one of those so I don't care". A few people will mutter over their pints of beer and a couple of articles will appear in the papers, uber-geeks will use some encryption or other work around, the real criminals will read the geek websites and learn how to cover their tracks, and 99% of the population will just go on as before. They don't mind giving their credit card details out to online stores they've never heard of before, they'll not worry the government keeps a copy of their emails.
Little public outrage was voiced here in the UK when Echelon became known about. A few left wing and liberal newspapers wrote big articles on it blowing the whole thing open to the middle class public and it didn't get much more feedback than a few people switching their vote to a different mainstream party, a couple of letters from Angry of Tunbridge Wells to the Times, and a few dozen hackers waving banners outside a government building or two. The man on the Clapham omnibus just won't care.