Big Brother is set to intrude on the people of the British Isles a bit more. In efforts to combat terrorism, the UK is already covered with cameras in sensitive urban areas. Now the British government wants more than just seeing what is going on, but knowing whom is communicating with whom.
Now Home Office officials plan on integrating “Black Box” technology so that every phone call, email and internet visit to the UK can be recorded and transferred to a central database.
The plan, called the Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP), has draw criticism from the internet industry and civil rights advocates. The proponents say that the plan is not to hold the content of emails or check internet traffic, but the idea of one site holding information of all telephone and internet communication is still frightening to many.
From the Belfast Telegraph:
Whitehall experts working on the IMP unit told the meeting the security and intelligence agencies wanted to use the stored data to help fight serious crime and terrorism, and said the technology would allow them to create greater “capacity” to monitor all communication traffic on the internet. The “black boxes” are an attractive option for the internet industry because they would be secure and not require any direct input from the ISPs.
During the meeting Whitehall officials also tried to reassure the industry by suggesting that many smaller ISPs would be unaffected by the “black boxes” as these would be installed upstream on the network and hinted that all costs would be met by the Government.
“It was clear the ‘back box’ is the technology the Government will use to hold all the data. But what isn’t clear is what the Home Secretary, GCHQ and the security services intend to do with all this information in the future,” said a source close to the meeting.
He added: “They said they only wanted to return to a position they were in before the emergence of internet communication, when they were able to monitor all correspondence with a police suspect. The difference here is they will be in a much better position to spy on many more people on the basis of their internet behaviour. Also there’s a grey area between what is content and what is traffic. Is what is said in a chat room content or just traffic?”
