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Virtual spies to be installed in UK ISPs

Posted on April 27, 2009

27 April 2009, released by UK Pressure Group No2ID

The Home Secretary today makes a delayed announcement of a consultation on proposals for the so-called Intercept Modernisation Programme. It has been widely reported for some months, and plans were acknowledged by Lord West the security minister last week[1], that this would place Home Office ‘probes’ in the datacentres of every British internet provider at an estimated cost of £12 billion.

This would allow direct skimming of all traffic, making it massively easier to intercept email and monitor individual’s web use using existing powers. The Home Office would become a clearing-house, able to provide data ad lib to other government agencies. It would also become possible for the first time to collect and store details of *all* communications by everyone in the country so that government agencies could investigate friendship networks and personal habits using data-mining techniques [2].

Guy Herbert, General Secretary of NO2ID [3] said:

Just a week after the Home Secretary announced a public consultation on some trivial trimming of local authority surveillance, we have this: a proposal for powers more intrusive than any police state in history.

‘Ministers are making a distinction between content and communications data into sound-bite of the year. But it is spurious. Officials from dozens of departments and quangos could know what you read online, and who all your friends are, who you emailed, when, and where you were when you did so – all without a warrant[4]. Tracking your your every move is more efficiently creepy than reading your letters.’

-ENDS-

Notes for editors:

1) See, for example:  The Register ‘Spy chiefs size up net snoop gear’

2) As suggested by Sir David Omand in his ‘A discussion paper for the ippr Commission on National Security for the 21st Century’

‘Finding out other people’s secrets is going to involve breaking everyday moral rules.’ – But the Home Office’s use of such a super-database is *not* limited to intelligence work – see note 4.

3) NO2ID is a national, non-partisan campaign against ID cards and the database state. See http://www.no2id.net/dbstate.php for a list of other ‘database state’ initiatives that NO2ID is actively opposing, and http://www.no2id.net/datasharing for how they fit together.

4) Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, the Home Secretary’s – not a court’s – warrant is required to read mail or listen to phone calls. But all the following may authorise themselves to examine communications data for their own purposes:

43 police forces in England & Wales

8 police forces in Scotland

Police Service of Northern Ireland

British Transport Police

Port of Liverpool Police

Port of Dover Police

Royal Military Police

Royal Air Force Police

Civil Nuclear Constabulary

Ministry of Defence Police

Royal Navy Police

Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs

Serious Organised Crime Agency

Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency United Kingdom Border Agency.

The Prison Service

Approximately 474 local authorities throughout the UK.

Approximately 110 *other* public authorities, including almost all government departments, and Serious Fraud Office Independent Police Complaints Commission Charity Commission Gambling Commission Royal Mail to name only a few.

(source: report of the Chief Surveillance Commissioner http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/hc0708/hc09/0947/0947.pdf )

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