SHOULD THE STATE SNOOP ON US AT EVERY TURN?
GCHQ: More sinister than it may appear
By Jimmy Young
At a time of the greatest economic uncertainty many of us have ever known, our main concern is that our money is safe in our banks.
We also hope that in future irresponsible bankers will be constrained from recklessly gambling with our hard-earned savings by much tougher regulations.
The Government’s bail-out of beleaguered banks may ease our fears on that score but we may need to worry instead about the deceptively innocent-sounding Communications Bill, which will be announced next month.
Using the excuse of fighting terrorism and crime, the Government has for many years been seeking ways to increase its power of surveillance over us.
The growth in the number of CCTV cameras alone has been phenomenal.
Two years ago, a study commissioned by Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, warned that the combination of CCTV, biometrics, databases and tracking technologies is actually the use of interconnected “smart” systems
to track the movements and behaviour of millions of people.
At the same time, an international privacy conference declared that Britain is the most snooped upon country in the democratic world.
Things have moved along apace since then. Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, 700 bodies are licensed to watch us by making a certified request to telephone or internet firms for individual records: 500,000 such requests were made last year.
How long those records will be kept is not known. For the past year telecoms companies have been required to keep records of telephone calls and text messages, which can be accessed by the security services, police or the Government if required. Again, how long those records will be kept is not clear.
About 57 billion text messages were sent in Britain last year and about three billion e-mails are sent every day, so there are doubts about the Government’s ability to cope with that huge volume of information.
The Government’s embarrassing talent for losing important data could create a nightmare situation. This year, the child benefit information of every family in Britain with a child under 16 was lost.
The Communications Bill is a further step in the Government’s attempt to increase the range of its surveillance. Its aim is to create a database equipped to track every telephone call we make, every website we visit and every text and e-mail we send.
There will be those who will say that if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. However, Liberty’s Shami Chakrabarti says the proposals would “transform the relationship between the individual and the State”.
Mr Thomas insists that the proposed changes must be debated because such excessive surveillance poses dangers to our way of life. That is the very least that must happen.
Predictably, a Government spokesman insists the changes are meant to protect the public. That is a statement of which Big Brother would be really proud.
E-mail Jimmy at jimmy.young@express.co.uk
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