Tom Whitehead writes in the Daily Telegraph:

An attempt by Theresa May to defend proposed new snooping powers backfired yesterday when she was contradicted by her own child exploitation experts.

The Home Secretary told MPs that nine members of a 41-strong international paedophile ring had never been traced because necessary internet data on them was not available.

She used the case as a reason why the Government plans to force communications providers to retain all phone and internet activity by its users, which can then be accessed by the police and security services.

But within hours of her warning, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop) revealed the case was five years old and may have had a different outcome today, regardless of any new powers.

The reason officers were unable to trace nine of the suspected paedophiles in the 2007 case was because records then were only retained for three months.

The current practice now is for companies to retain records for at least a year and a Ceop source admitted that may have made a difference in the case had been live today.

Dr Joss Wright writes in detail on the LSE Politics blog about CCDP. He concludes:

While the above arguments have focused to some extent on technology and the risks that come with its misguided application. A more important and fundamental argument, however, is that the proposed approach follows and accelerates a worrying trend towards blanket and unwarranted surveillance of the population in the hope of identifying those who may commit crimes. With the wealth of information revealed by communications data, the appeal to a Home Secretary of an algorithmic black box that can magically identify terrorists is, perhaps, understandable, at least to those unfamiliar with the concept of the base rate fallacy; such a view, however, violates the basic principle that individuals for whom there is no evidence or suspicion of wrongdoing should not be targeted. Without this principle, where does the surveillance and intrusion into our lives end?

There are many arguments against surveillance of the type proposed in schemes such as the Communication Capabilities Development Programme, and I have touched on only a fraction. In the past, technical and economic feasibility, as well as compliance with EU law, have proved some of the most powerful of these arguments, and they will remain so. Despite this, I believe that our arguments should stem first and foremost from the fact that blanket and unwarranted surveillance of the population is deeply wrong, both in terms of our fundamental human rights and in our most basic values as a society. Until that argument is won we will never see the end of these misguided and damaging proposals.

Graeme Burton writes in Computing about the recently enacted Protection of Freedoms Act:

Perhaps the most contentious measures involve the retention of DNA and fingerprint evidence, which is taken as a matter of routine by police from anyone they arrest and, in some circumstances, detain for questioning.

Prior to the Act, police forces up and down the country were building a de facto DNA database, given that when someone was arrested but not charged with an offence, their DNA and finger print data would automatically be retained indefinitely.

Under the new Act, such evidence can still be retained indefinitely if suspects have previously been found guilty of a serious crime, but will be destroyed for suspects with no previous convictions – albeit after a three-year period. On top of that, if someone – in the judgement of the chief constable – is arrested unlawfully, their DNA and fingerprints can also be erased from the system.

However, where the legislation becomes extremely vague is clause 9, which covers national security. This enables any DNA or fingerprint evidence to be “retained for as long as a national security determination made by the responsible chief officer of police has effect in relation to it”.

Alan Travis writes in The Guardian:

Having probably queued to get into Britain, thousands of overseas residents, including senior business people and academics, now face the prospect of being unable to leave the country, possibly for weeks, because a key UK border agency computer system has crashed.

Hundreds of people queueing at UKBA’s public inquiry office in Croydon, applying to extend or renew biometric residence permits, were told to go home on Thursday because the computer system could not cope.

The details of more than 600,000 foreign nationals living in Britain have been logged on the biometric residents’ identity card database since it was set up four years ago.

But it has suffered repeated failures in recent weeks which culminated in a complete breakdown on Thursday. All afternoon appointments have now been cancelled for the next two weeks.

Graeme Burton writes in Computing:

Cabinet Office plans to increase data sharing among government departments and other public-sector bodies will require a new “consent exemption” to legalise the sharing of sensitive personal data.

That is the view of Kathryn Wynn, a data protection law specialist and senior associate at law firm Pinsent Masons. Even with such an exception, she warns, public-sector bodies might still have difficulty justifying sharing sensitive personal data under the Data Protection Act, without first notifying the individuals concerned.

It follows revelations that Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude is planning new laws that would provide the public sector with a “fast-track mechanism” to enable personal data collected by one government department or public-sector organisation to be used by others for purposes other than those originally intended.

According to the reports, even data collected by doctors or the police could be shared with other bodies without individuals’ consent or notification. This, however, might contravene as many as four of the eight data protection principles established under the Data Protection Acts 1984 and 1998.