Technology critic and Convention advisor Bill Thompson has a good article on governent data retention plans over at Index on Censorship. The government attempts to reassure us by pointing out that under current plans only the details of sender/receiver are stored and not the content of communications. But, as Bill warns, once these powers are granted, “mission creep is inevitable” and it is only a matter of time before they are extended. Even under the existing plans there are alarming ways in which these new powers can be used:
Whatever limits are currently in place on who gets access to the stored records, once the database is there it will be used. This should worry us all but it is particularly concerning for any journalist working in the UK.
The law does not provide any special protection or privilege for us, and emails sent to or from indexoncensorship.org, bbc.co.uk and guardian.co.uk will be stored along with everyone else’s
That is going to make leak inquiries a lot easier. For example, if I write a story that embarrasses the justice secretary then it will be possible to go back through a year’s worth of my emails and texts to see if I’ve had any contact at all with potential leakers inside the department and focus investigation on them.
I would like to support the concern here about investigative journalism, but I also wish to underline the dangers of what I would rather see called “powers creep” because that is what it is and that is instantly, intuitively obvious as a label.
Secondly please note that with reference to the clauses slipped into the Coroners and Justice Bill Mr. Straw has said defensively “… you don’t want personally to give the same information again and again if it can be safely held and safely transferred.”
Please challenge this statement with all force. This bill will enable authorities from central government to local council to most merrily transfer anything they hold on us whenever they fancy it. Giving any authority any personal data will mean giving it to ALL authorities.
The response is YES we DO want to give the same information again and again. It is a small inconvenience to bear to protect personal information from inappropriate uses. Consent to use personal data for X does NOT imply consent to use it for Y.
Straw admits that public agreement can only be possible where it can be shown that data is “… if it can be safely held and safely transferred.”
This of course is a ludicrous and tragic if. The record of our masters in losing our data is absolutely appalling. They make little or no attempt to “safely” hold or “safely” transfer it.
There is a further concern about outsourcing public authority files to external private agencies. These are not subject to Data Protection laws so we cannot check what they are doing by demanding to see our files.
P.S. Even if it were possible to demonstrate that our data is currently “safely held and safely transferred” this is a dynamically unstable condition.
It might conceivably at some point be possible to show that last year public data was safely held and safely transferred. That does NOT mean and cannot ever mean that this state of affairs will obtain in future years.
The powers creep principle, techno fashionistas getting excited about new but faulty gadgetry, and sheer human inefficiency, will either singly or together, sooner or later reduce the “safely held and safely transferred” standard.
In short this is too much power to hand to any government.
I would like to know how we could unilaterally opt out of this legislation as, under the Lisbon Treaty, Justice and Home Affairs will be an EU competence.
Similarly, how can we avoid ID cards and ‘transformational government’ and still be part of the European Interoperability Framework and comply with EU Immigration legislation?
I can see the point of not ‘muddying the waters’ by talking about the EU but I am genuinely confused as to how, for example, the Lib Dems can be passionately Europhile yet be against ID cards and vote for fast track extradition in the EU Parliament.
Having had run ins with those who hold power in the NHS I become very well aware how data can be altered or misrecorded. My email listings are kept. There is no protections to prevent email listings being matched with made up messages that have come from an unknown source.
I have no problem with a record of my email listings. I have nothing to hide. But it is too easy to modify and falsify data and that concerns me no end.
john eayrs, it is of no import whether you have anything to hide or not it is none of their business.
Did you know that some company accounting procedures have to be done online at the Inland Revenue website, but the Inland Revenue have informed ‘important’ people not to use their online facility because it is insecure. So privacy is now only for the rich and powerful not for us all. Of course it is not secure – anything that has been coded by a human can be broken by a human.