More delays for UK.gov’s net snooping programme
Chris Williams writes in The Register:
Protests from ISPs and phone providers have further delayed government plans to massively increase monitoring of phone calls, web browsing and emails, it’s revealed today.
As a result of concerns over costs and technical feasibility, it is now expected that the legislation necessary to implement the £2bn surveillance programme – known in Whitehall as the Interception Modernisation Programme – will not be included in next week’s Queen’s Speech.
The move is likely to delay the project until long after the next election, to the frustration of law enforcement and intelligence bodies. The poll must be called before 4 June.
The Home Office today published the responses to its consultation on the plans and said it would continue to work with the communications industry.
Richard Edwards writes in the Daily Telegraph:
The responses, published yesterday, disclosed that more than 40 per cent of 221 respondents rejected it outright as the growth of the surveillance state.
Of those whose repsonses were considered, exactly half said that the proposed safeguards for the information to be stored were not adequate.
Only 29 per cent third supported the Government approach, whereas 38 per cent were against it.
Meanwhile the communications providers themselves questioned the cost of the scheme and whether it was even technically feasible.
November 10th, 2009 at 21:53
These articles make good reading, but what people should be aware of is that the Data Retention Directive is an EU driven policy. Throughout the EU countries have been passing this EU Directive into law. But in some countries, there have been delays and constitutional challenges. But the EU is fighting back and has decided to take Sweden to court for slow progress on the issue http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.14/sweden-data-retention .
They are not the only countries putting the brake on – amongst the others are Germany, Austria, Greece, Ireland, the Netherlands and Poland. But sadly, not the UK.
This is a battle of wills between the EU and countries concerned about the privacy of their citizens and it will be interesting to see how it plays out.
For a comment on the German position go here http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/03/german-court-tightens-up-isp-phone-data-retention-rules.ars .
November 11th, 2009 at 10:46
Data retention is so all-pervasive – who knows where this attack on privacy will lead? Chris Grayling always talks about ‘function creep’. Does anyone know what the Conservative policy is on data retention?
November 14th, 2009 at 15:00
@Geoff Cox
“what people should be aware of is that the Data Retention Directive is an EU driven policy”
Yup – and who were the principle people putting forward and backing the directive from the start?
Full marks for anyone who says “Tony Blair and chums”.
The government does this a lot, especially with their more draconian ‘reforms’. They lobby, cajole and slide things into European directives then claim to their own people, “It’s not our fault – those nasty Europeans are making us do it to you”.
The EU is merely being used by the British Government as an incubator to protect unpopular ideas, so they can transplant them fully grown into British law, bypassing much debate in the UK.
If they cared they would object to the directive. Think about it, they seem pretty happy to ignore EU law on illegal DNA retention, but oddly keen to go along with the directive to spy on citizens.
Apparently duplicity works.
November 16th, 2009 at 09:29
@Simon
I apreciate this policy may have originated with Tony Blair and chums, but the EU did not have to approve it or spread it to all other EU states. But now that it is an EU Directive, what can be done?
The other point is that DNA retention is not about the EU. The European Court of Human Rights is under the Council of Europe and its rulings are not binding.
However, this Govenment by enacting the Human Rights Act have agreed to go along with all judgements and case history. Though in the case of DNA, they seem to be ignoring the spirit of the judgement if not the word.
November 16th, 2009 at 12:42
@Geoff
You’re right that the EU did not have to approve it but that’s one of the things that disturbs me about the EU – I’m not convinced these things go through the same levels of representative debate to become Directives as they would in member states own parliaments.
I am not sure what can be done but I think it’s worth watching states such as Sweden as they look about ready to stand up to the directive. In their case their proponent was their own justice minister at the time but their government as a whole now seems to regret it. Also Germany are starting to realise what the measures would mean, a country that has such vivid memories of the Gestapo may yet find the will to stand firm against it.
In general I think it is important to always highlight where these ideas came from and who voted for them – we need to close off the expectation that this method will be a smoother ride to get unpopular policies past the electorate. We need to remove their ability to use this sleight of hand whenever they try by always loudly pointing out whose idea it was, or who voted for it.
You’re totally right re the difference between the EU and the ECHR, that was a dumb comparison on my part. I should have stuck to directives, a better example would perhaps have been the working time directive, which we seem quite content to challenge.
November 16th, 2009 at 21:01
@Simon
I’d be very interested to find out what wriggle room, member states have when it comes to EU Directives. After all, the Home Office had first proposed a giant database of their own to collect all these data logs, but that has been shelved. So what else could go?
November 21st, 2009 at 14:40
Suppose the UK government decided to ignore an EU directive, or even to remove the laws that implemented an EU directive. What exactly can the EU do about it?