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GOVERNMENT SNOOPING

Brian Grainger

Here in the UK certain individuals have the right to ask for access to communications. When the Regulation of Investigatory Powers act was first announced it caused a lot of concern amongst privacy advocates. The government wanted the ability to have all e-mails stored for possible perusal and records kept of where on the web individuals visited. The justification was that this would help in the combat of crime. After September 11th it was to help in the fight against terrorism as well.

As the proposals moved to law they got watered down to appease the protests. The number of individuals allowed to exercise the power were reduced and the text of messages would not be stored.

However, figures released in parliament a couple of months ago reveal just how much snooping is going on.

Customs and Excise have 200 staff authorised to use the snooping authority and had sought access 35000 times in the last year. The Inland Revenue had made access a further 11700 times in the last year.

That is an awful lot of accesses for something the politicians assure us would only be used when necessary in the pursuit of crime.

The government has also been criticised by the Data Protection Commissioner. In July, Elizabeth France, the Commissioner, was concerned the government had given law enforcement agencies too much power, going beyond preventing terrorism.

She said: "These initiatives have led to a noticeable shift in the balance between respect for an individual's private life and the needs of society to protect itself against such criminal actions. Although this shift has occurred in the name of terrorism, the measures deployed often go much further into areas of more general criminality."

She singled out last year's Anti-Terrorism Act, which gives agencies more power to retain and monitor private individuals' telecoms traffic data, as an area for particular concern.

France also criticised plans to extend the scope of these powers to encompass public health and tax collection, not just issues of national security and general criminality.

She said: "The potential for access, for these much wider purposes, for information that is on the face of it retained only for safeguarding national security, causes us real concern."

Unfortunately, the Data Protection Commission, which is supposed to protect our privacy, is totally useless when it comes to prosecuting anybody and the Government seems to think it does not have to comply with its own laws.

Remember, Big Brother is watching you.

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