Published in News

UK rushes to read everyone's email

by on07 April 2009

Image

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.
Rate this item
(0 votes)