Personal web data to be stored for a year
New law forces service providers to record all your calls and emails from Monday
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Independent Minds
The mobile calls, emails and website visits of every person in Britain will be stored for a year under sweeping new powers which come into force on Monday. Privacy campaigners warned last night that the information would be used by the Government to create a giant "Big Brother" super-database containing a map of everyone's private life.
The new powers will, for the first time, place a legal duty on internet companies to store private information, including email traffic and website browsing histories.
Although the new retention powers will not permit the storage of the content of emails or phone calls it will show details such as IP addresses, date, time and user telephone numbers. Under the terms of the EU directive, the Home Office has written to leading internet service providers and phone companies offering to compensate them for the costs incurred in retaining the data for a year.
A spokesman for the Internet Service Providers Association confirmed that the leading ISPs had received written orders from the Home Office setting out their obligations under the new rules.
Phil Booth of the civil rights campaign group, NOID, said: "Inch by inch, the Government's plans to map and monitor everyone's communications are creeping into place. Today it's retention of data, soon it'll be a giant database to suck it all up. And unless we speak out and stop this, what used to be private – details of your relationships and personal interests – will end up in the ever-widening control of the stalker state."
Last week the The Independent reported that millions of Britons who use social networking sites such as Facebook could soon have their every move monitored by the Government and saved on a "Big Brother" database.
Then ministers faced a civil liberties outcry over the plans, with accusations of excessive snooping on the private lives of law-abiding citizens. Others fear the risk of security breaches. "Quite clearly, this new legislation opens up a whole can of worms for the ISPs when it comes to potential security implications," said Neil Cook, a security expert with the internet data protection firm Cloudmark.
The Government has twice postponed publication of a new data communications Bill in which ministers will set out their plans for a centrally controlled database. A Home Office spokesman said: "If we do not make changes now to maintain existing capabilities, the law enforcement, security and intelligence agencies will no longer be able to use this data in the future."
He added: "It is the Government's priority to protect public safety and national security. That is why we are completing the implementation of this directive, which will bring the UK in line with our European counterparts. Communications data plays a vital part in a wide range of criminal investigations. Without communications data, resolving crimes such as the Rhys Jones murder would be very difficult if not impossible."
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Comments
The same old arguments are trotted out each time; national security, terrorist threats, public safety but it is the elasticity with which the reasons are interpreted that is the real threat.
How would you feel, for example, if the entirety of your internet browsing were to be snooped on just to provide targeted advertising? Is that something you would be happy with? I ask because that is exactly where we are heading.
A company called Phorm has done a deal with BT, Virgin Media and Carphone Warehouse to install Deep Packet Inspection technology at the heart of the network of these Internet Service Providers. It will build a profile on people, according to their browsing habits, purely to provide better targeted advertising. This is a huge invasion of online privacy. It sits at the heart of the ISP and cannot be evaded. Phorm claim that people will be able to opt-out but what Phorm don't say is that you will only be able to opt out of receiving the adverts . Even if you opt-out your online browsing still goes through the Deep Packet Inspection kit and is effectively illegally intercepted.
Its the only equivalent of the post office opening all your letters, reading them, building a profile on based on what you said and then using that information to better target junk mail at you.
Now, what if I were to tell you that Phorm has a history in spyware? Back when Phorm was known as 121 media, they were responsible for some software called people on page, context plus and the apropos rootkit. F-secure, a well respected computer security company categorised this software as spyware. Is this the kind of company you want to trust with your online privacy and you want to have equipment snooping on your every move online?
It gets worse. In 2006 and 2007 Phorm and BT ran secret trials of this technology on tens of thousands of customers without their knowledge or consent. These trials were potentially illegal and efforts are ongoing to have BT/Phorm prosecuted for these trials without customers consent. The Crown Prosecution Service is currently considering whether to allow a private prosecution.
Phorm counters that its system protects privacy and they never know who you are and that data is anonymised but they are wrong. I will leave others to explain Anonymity VS Pseudonymity. Phorm like to say that what google does is worse while ignoring the fact I have choice about using google services. I can easily choose to use a different search engine or different webmail provider. The Phorm DPI kit sits at the heart of the ISP network and cannot be evaded. Opting out will not stop the interception of your browsing traffic.
Phorm also claim that its critics are against behavioural advertising but we aren't. This is a very deliberate straw-man argument. Numerous times we have said it is the Deep Packet Inspection/snooping we object to but Phorm will not engage on this point. This is something they share with BT who consistently delete any threads about Phorm from the BT customer support forums. More transparency from the people who didn't think they needed to ask if they could spy on tens of thousands of their customers in 2006 and 2007.
Even Sir Tim Berners Lee, largely credited as the inventor of the World Wide Web while working at CERN said the following, at a House of Lords meeting discussing Internet Privacy on 11th march 2009, about Deep Packet Inspection; 'To allow someone to snoop on your Internet traffic is to allow them to put a television camera in your room, except it will tell them a whole lot more about you than the television camera...'
He also was quoted as saying 'Clearly we must not interfere with the Internet, and we must not snoop on the Internet. If we snoop on clicks and data, we can find out a lot more information about people than if we listen to their conversations.'
Of course Phorm disagree but who are you going to trust? The inventor of the World Wide Web or a company with a history in Spyware?
Phorm must be stopped. If you care about your privacy then do your own research and you will find many of us out there trying what we can to stop this insidious threat/technology. A good starting place would be the badphorm or nodpi websites.
Many thanks for your write up. I thought it would be a few years before the government started to sell off all this data to advertisers.
Have they started to sell licences already?
Why do we not here more about this in the UK? Are you Swedish?
As for why this issue isn't more high profile in the UK thats an excellent question and I think a lot of it has to do with the technical issues and how to make the story more easily understood by the less technical/technological aware. There has been a lot of coverage on IT related news sites etc and occasionally stories hit the mainstream press too.
Am I swedish? I guess asonberg does sound swedish but its not my real name.
I'm pretty much expecting to see that old chestnut "if you haven't got anything to hide, you haven't got anything to fear" on this comment thread by morning, so to those who take this view, I would like to pose a question:
Can you give me a guarantee that at no point in the future will a non-benign government come into power, take control of that data, and use it for non-benign purposes?
I have in fact written to the Identity & Passport department three times regarding ID cards and the supporting database infrastructure to ask the above question. Although they have written back (listing a huge number of "benefits" to the systems), they have not yet answered the question.
Hosts files won't stop the snooping, not by the government or by BT and Virgin. I think it will only stop YOU seeing things, not them. They sit and monitor your one and only internet connection. All of it.
I think this phorm stuff is even worse than the government snooping. At least HMG. say they want to stop crime. Phorm and BT and Richard Branson's Virgin just want to shove ads in your face. And at least HMG. needs a warrant to look (I think).
I think it's wrong to spy on peoples internet communications. It's like opening their letters. HMG should only do it in rare circumstances under strict rules. Commercial companies should NEVER do it.
What is this country coming to? How did we get here?
I can't do anything about the government, but I can change my ISP. This is going to be Bye Bye Virgin, and when their customers find out about it, I don't suppose we will be the only ones.
Are you listening Mr Branson? This is a BAD idea.
I think I need to get this "Home Office spokesman" to speak at this event. If you can think of anybody else I should invite then email me at rbryant@eng-nl.com
Kind regards
Rhiannon Bryant
E.N.G www.eng-nl.com
And just as the state shouldn't be tracking my every move, nor should business. We are sleepwalking into a surveillance internet, where not only the state, but advertisers are intercepting and monitoring our communications. One company in particular has a uniquely invasive form of behavioural tracking - inserted into the heart of your internet service - tracking equipment that stands between you and the internet. The company is called Phorm, the technology is called Webwise, and the ISPs considering using it are BT (who have already done 2 secret and one public trial), Virgin Media and TalkTalk.
There is NO way to avoid this technology except to leave your ISP for one that doesn't use it. You can't evade it with HOSTS files, you can't avoid it by deleting cookies or even blocking them, whatever action you take, all your traffic will be intercepted by Phorm supplied, Phorm programmed Deep Packet Inspection kit. The government have at least said they won't inspect the contents of our communications routinely, but Phorm's Webwise technology DOES. It is not possible at present, to opt out of this interception.
Phorm's method of tracking and behavioural targeting is unique. It is distinct from the sort of behaviourally targeted advertising carried out by search engines or website cookies on certain parts of the web. It is done AT SOURCE, in the heart of your ISP, and you can't escape. If hte postman opens all your mail at the sorting office there is no way to opt out, even if you block the resulting junk mail from being delivered. Your mail has been intercepted, it has been read, and someone somewhere knows the details.
Phorm's Webwise, as trialled by BT, is also unique in the way it seeks to divert trade from 3rd party websites, as it abuses their copyright, database and trademark rights, scraping their sites to use the data without consent to divert trade to its own advertising partners in the OIX partnership. Phorm is bad for individual privacy, and bad for commercial businesses too.
Just put "Phorm" into your search engine and chase a few links. You will find a story of dubious legality, interception, deception, PR spin, and regulatory intertia. Phorm, and its uniquely invasive ISP-based interception surveillance using DPI, must be stopped, before our privacy disappears completely. Search for "nodpi", "badphorm" and "inphormationdesk" for some solutions
And almost everyone I know would not mind if the intervention is permitted but only if authorised by a third party independent to the executive (i.e. the judiciary).
Of course, the judiciary can always be bought (though I like to think that is a fairly infrequent to non-existent practice in the UK - leaving aside the Law Lords inquiries into Kelly, Iraq, Stockwell shootings etc.), but the beauty of our constitution is that there is a balance between the EXECUTIVE and the JUDICIARY that should, in most cases, avoid abuse.
This new legislation, like much that comes from Stasi Nu Labour, does away with that 'check and balance', and thus damages our democracy and our centuries old unwritten constitution.
Unfortunately this government has treated the last election as them having been installed as dictators for 5 years. Even when they are very aware they are acting against the public desires they charge on ignoring their role in the running of society (their role being to serve us).
One day we might just get a government that recognises that they are there to serve us and we are not there to serve then i.e. in the UK we do not have the Napoleonic system of state as in e.g. France). If governments continue to ignore this I can see a lot of problems starting in the years to come. I hope I'm wrong or that governments change their attitudes (and given my age I will probably not be around anyway - alrady rather old !!). It does not take any changes to the system - just the nature of the people getting elected.
All this will be done "for your own good", to protect you from terrorism, to improve your mind.
The cost will hugely outweigh the benefit.
Roll on The Revolution!
Any one got a view about use of a 'tunnel'? I'm getting sick of having laboriously (manually) block attempts to keylog every time I log into this space for example (and not it ain't due to a local infection).
It's a great ruse - if you disagree with this sentiment then automatically you become a dissident; clearly you can't have the safety of the nation in mind! It's an enabler that allows any law to be passed.
As for Phorm, if anyone thinks this is a good thing, you deserve everything you get. I'll be ditching BT the moment it goes live under unfair changes to T&Cs.
http://www.vadeker.net/articles/interac
Just think...anyone sending an off colored joke could be followed as a possible sex offender. Anyone sending a political funny could be followed as a possible terrorist. And the list goes on and on. Scary!
I think Jade Goody's funeral is far more important than all this paranoia.
I think I just slope off to watch the footy now. I am after all, a bovine moron, enslaved in unrepayable debt, spied upon constantly, robbed by the corporate kleptocracy at every opportunity.
Liberty, freedom, self determination self responsibility, sound money, fairness and ethics in politics?
PAH
The Third Way - A boot stamping on a face......FOREVER
It seems my details were used in an ATTEMPT to sign up to a site associated with child pornography. No money changed hands, the confirmation email which was known to have been sent out was never replied to. All this was known BEFORE a warrant was issued, and no discreet investigations were undertaken to find any more compelling evidence prior to obtaining a warrant. Put simply, there was no cause to issue that warrant.
This "evidence", which spoke at least as much of my innocence as any possible guilt did not stop the state sanctioned invasion of my home and the complete disruption of my work and private life. Fortunately my family is made of sterner stuff. Ironically, the actions of the powers that be, in riding roughshod over our rights, have left my family and I in better shape than ever - no mortgage, no debt, no rent to pay - no worries; well very few. Even the recession hasn't bitten us yet.
I see in these new invasive laws and the tendency of HMG to ignore the invasion of our privacy and the erosion of our rights by corporate entities, a logical progression from the trials of Operation ORE - the trial of novel methods to abuse ordinary people - by the state.
This will end in tears and almost certainly violence, as marginalised individuals and groups find what little stake they have in society squeezed beyond value. We've seen it already on a VERY small scale. What's to lose if your culture, your religion, your beliefs, your family, your identity are devalued to nothing? Downtrodden people get bigger boots or they go under. Question is, how many will go for military issue and how many of them will be smart enough to do a lot of damage with minimal resources?
Incidentally, this latest invasion of our privacy will do absolutely NOTHING to stop or capture any self respecting terrorist or criminal. Those in the corridors of power have practically ZERO knowledge of the technical realities of what they are attempting and are equally in ignorance of the blindingly easy methods of circumventing their surveillance. Furthermore, the martyrdom syndrome that afflicts the most dedicated terrorist leaves no room for the consideration of capture and arrest. They need only avoid detection until after the event. This law is a waste of time, resources and taxpayer's money.
Don't mind me, I'm just passing through - the fringe has its compensations....
There was absolutely no regard for human rights or the right to privacy and family life. Oree's have been telling of the bullying, abusive, threatening, humiliated treatment for the past 6/7 years. Because the general public was fed a lie about Operation Ore being to 'protect children from abuse by internet perverts', we were ignored.
Every family with children had to be investigated by Social Services. All in the name of 'child protection'. So now you have thousands (and I mean thousands) of children traumatised and fearful of the State- how is that child protection? And don't forget, this experience provided one of the wonderful excuses for the ContactPoint Database. (Now you too can have your children tagged, monitored and tracked from birth)
The mission creep that started 7 years ago has made an Orwellian nightmare. All justified in the names of 'child protection' 'protection from terrorists' and 'to preserve our way of life'. The biggest destroyers of 'our way of life' is THIS GOVERNMENT.
Is it not an amazing co-incidence that in the main OREE's were white, middle class men in white collar IT jobs, in their 30's with children. If you want to silence a group of critics who just might be able to put forward a coherent argument and protest, who do you pick? After all, who is going to listen to a bunch of 'dirty perverts'? So stigmatise them and put them on the margin, afraid to speak.
Oree's take no pleasure in saying 'We warned you and told you so.' Unfortunately, it is the truth.
Everyone's data can now be used to 'presume guilty until you prove your innocence'. So Joe Public, just wait for your 7 am knock at the door.
Totally Confused
What we are here, is the point where all it takes is one single, simple stroke of legislation and suddenly the government has access to everything you do online, CONTENT and who to and from.
Are we not under the ECHR charter entitled to a basic right to a private life? This is in direct violation of that simple tenet.
Always the "security" word, this f***ing government is obsessed with that word, yet it manages to lose a lot of data every year although I have theory that people are paid/instructed to lose that information so it gets into the hands of those willing to pay or using it as an excuse to transfer information to America and Israel who both have a very unhealthy interest in our private data.
You may as well say let's take a turn following around every person in Britain for a day or a week to the police. That's a great idea. Or how about steaming open everyone's post and then re-gluing it before it actually gets sent. That's not a waste of effort.
Come on you English, where's your defence of personal space and liberty now, you didn't have the saying an Englishman's home is his castle for nothing you know ?
RT
www.anon-tools.cz.tc
If you want to secure the contents of any email (or any text at all) ClipSecure is a simple tool that lets you encrypt it. Just highlight the text and hit the button. Share a password with whoever will receive the email. Obviously don't send the password by email! Swap it in person.
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/clipse
This is the most insidious and wasteful UK law I've heard of so far; those who have things to hide can do so very easily, and the rest of us (@corbeyhj, "probably 90% or more will be completely innocent" - it's probably closer to 99.99%) will pay, as taxpayers, to be monitored permanently by our ISP... just in case?! Unbelievable!
This really shows to what extent the powers that be take us for complete idiots: and if we sit and watch passively while our basic freedoms are whittled away like this, then we are.
and as for paying the isps for the information, at least pay us, the public!!! cheeky so and so's.
when the politicians get their own house in order, then they can start on the rest of us. the political class must be the most useless, self serving bunch of ingrates and degenerates in the country. do any of them actually know what it's like to live in the real world?
at least muggers do it to your face!!