The UK's privacy tsar has made a plea to the government not to rush through a centralised database of all UK communications.
Speaking at the launch of the Information Commissioner's Office's Annual Report 2008, information commissioner Richard Thomas said the rumoured database of UK phone and internet communications would be "a step too far for the British way of life".
A database of all calls, emails and internet traffic, to be stored by the Home Office for at least 12 months, is thought to be included under proposals for "modifying procedures for acquiring communications data" in the draft Communications Data Bill.
The annual report from the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) also revealed that the ICO had issued nine enforcement notices for data-protection breaches this year to bodies including Carphone Warehouse and Greater Manchester Police, and had carried out 11 prosecutions.
On Tuesday, the ICO also served enforcement notices against HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) following the departments' high-profile data breaches.
Echoing concerns aired in the report, Thomas said in a statement: "There needs to be the fullest public debate about the justification for, and implications of, a specially created database — potentially accessible to a wide range of law-enforcement authorities — holding details of everyone's telephone and internet communications."
Thomas said privacy was already being quietly eroded, citing the examples of the expansion of the DNA database, and the centralised collection and retention of data from automatic number-plate-recognition cameras.
Thomas said: "Before major new databases are launched, careful consideration must be given to the impact on individuals' liberties and on society as a whole. Sadly, there have been too many developments where there has not been sufficient openness, transparency or public debate."
Both the MoD and HMRC are now required to show steps they have taken to improve data-protection compliance in response to the ICO enforcement notices.
The ICO received 24,851 enquiries and complaints concerning personal information in 2007-08.
Talkback
There are so many reasons why this is a bad idea, but I guess the killer punch is that it will not do what they obviously want it to do. This isn't "It physically won't work", which in point of fact it probably won't, in common with so many other HMG mega-databases. Once they have circumvented all the pitfalls of public private partnerships etc etc the general public will know, if interested, what kinds of communications are snooped and what kinds are free from observation. Anyone trying to arrange illicit activities will simply avoid those that are logged. CCTV cameras, it has been shown, simply move street crime to somewhere else, the same effect will be seen here.
This much seems obvious. The part the worries me about this is that it IS obvious. Why then is it being pushed through? Either our great and glorious leaders haven't thought of it, or they know full well that this is the case and aren't bothered because that's not what this scheme is actually intended to do.
The NIR has similar problems. All of the various "Undeniable Reasons" for the NIR have been roundly denied by relevant experts and in many cases by the ministers themselves. So what is it ACTUALLY for.
People need to understand that these schemes are not paid for with magic pounds that spring unbidden from the ground within the square mile. They are paid for with money that we pay in taxes and compete with other actual useful stuff like coppers on the street, nurses in the wards and pay rises for the poor sods at the bottom of the public sector pay scales. You don't have to prevent the squander of that many billions on these ill considered schemes before you could give a pretty decent pay rise to every bin man and care worker in the country without any effect on inflation.