Thanks EU
The UK has put into
effect a European Union directive which mandates the archival of information
regarding virtually all internet traffic for the next 12 months.
The data
retention rules require the archival of all email traffic, records of VOIP
telephone calls, and information about every visited by any computer
user in the country. Even the smallest ISP has been ordered to collect and
store the data. What is alarming is that while the data has been collected to
fight "crime and terrorism" it will also be accessible by "hundreds of
public bodies" to investigate whatever crimes they see fit.
This includes
the tax office and the local council. We guess it could also be used to see
if you paid your television licence fee. Theoretically every country in
the EU has to do this, however most of them are only adopting it in part. In Blighty, which has one of the most psychologically unbalanced
surveillance cultures anywhere in the world, they have taken it to its
extreme. Sweden is ignoring it completely.
However already the law is
starting to show signs of its stupidity. Technically it is starting to look
like many of the UK's ISPs are not up to the task. One large ISP would
need 40 million gigabytes of storage capacity each year to satisfy the
government's demands. Will the money spent pay for itself in terms of
convictions for serious crimes and terrorism or will it gather electronic
dust?
Then there is the small matter of the coppers trying to look at that
data in a way they can understand. It will be looking for a needle in a
haystack. Many in the UK have watched as huge amounts of tax dollars have
been wasted bringing in electronic snooping gear in one form or another.
All it takes is a small amount of technical ability, such as the use of
encryption on emails, and this bold new big brother initiative is down
the loo.