THE GOVERNMENT is indulging in fantasies of a massive database with details of every telephone call, text message, email and web visit made by everyone in Britain, according to The Times newspaper today.

The government has run plans for the database by industry, even though they haven't yet been shown to parliament or the public, it said.

The database was being touted as the engine of reforms being proposed in the government's draft Communications Data Bill.

But the government's draft legislative programme gave scant details when it was published last Tuesday.

It gave little more than a vague statement about the need for the police and security agencies to collect data about people's communications in order to catch terrorists and criminals.

"The Bill would bring the legislative framework on access to communications data up to date with changes taking place in the telecommunications industry and the move to using Internet Protocol (IP) core networks," it said.

"Unless the legislation is updated to reflect these changes, the ability of authorities to carry out their counter-terror, crime prevention and public safety duties and to counter these threats will be undermined," it said.

The Home Office said today: “Ministers have made no decisions on whether a central database will be in that draft Bill.”

That's because ministers hadn't even been shown the ideas. A bill hasn't even been drafted. the government has merely proposed that it draft a bill.

Nevertheless, the Information Commissioner, the UK's data guardian, still expressed his concerns about the draft draft proposals.

‘We are not aware of any justification for the state to hold every UK citizen’s phone and internet records," said Jonathan Bamford, the deputy ICO, in a written statement.

‘Defeating crime and terrorism is of the utmost importance, but we are not aware of any pressing need to justify the government itself holding this sort of data,” he said.

The Conservatives and Libdems both expressed concerns about the plans, and mutterings were made all round about the Surveillance Society and Orwellian dystopia.

Chris Huhne, shadow Libdem home secretary, said in a statement that the plans didn't have a place in a free country: “Given their appalling track record of data loss, this Government simply cannot to be trusted with such private information." µ