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Proposed UK Communications Law Could Be Used To Spy On Physical Mail

Posted by timothy on from the old-bailey's-long-planned-demolition dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The BBC reports that the UK's Draft Communications Bill includes a provision which could be used to force the Royal Mail and other mail carriers to retain data on all physical mail passing through their networks. The law could be used to force carriers to maintain a database of any data written on the outside of an envelope or package which could be accessed by government bodies at will. Such data could include sender, recipient and type of mail (and, consequentially, the entire contents of a postcard). It would provide a physical analog of the recently proposed internet surveillance laws. The Home Office claims that it has no current plans to enforce the law."

4 of 125 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Be very afraid... by game+kid · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Ah, but that's a petition to "Scrap Plans to Monitor all Emails and Web Usage". If they only monitor 99.999% of them they can still say they accepted the petition. :)

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  2. Re:Be very afraid... by frostilicus2 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's amusing that an influential person like (Sir) Tim Berners-Lee can make a statements such as this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17753971 in the national press and the population don't even blink...

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  3. Re:We've heard this before by Mashiki · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Greetings from post WWII Europe and East Germany. Where the STASI did exactly this, and neighbors spied on each other. I wonder how long before the underground springs up and things start getting smuggled around? Well I'm sure there's a few ex-east germans who would be more than willing to give the Brit's tips on how to do it.

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  4. Re:What are Brits control freaks? by manicb · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We didn't vote for it, and we actually voted against it. None of this stuff was in the manifesto of either of the parties in the ruling coalition. They were highly critical of similar legislation when proposed by their opponents, who were turfed out in the last general election. We've had such a long run of crazy authoritarian Home Secretaries now that it's pretty clear somebody or something is getting to them, possibly through their office (or bedroom) window.