UK government seeks to extend snooping laws

The Guardian today reveals that UK ministers are seeking to have all our communications records opened up to anyone in a vague position of power. Whitehall wants local authorities, NHS bodies in Scotland and Northern Ireland and 11 other public bodies ranging from the postal services commission to the UK atomic energy authority constabulary (gulp!) to be allowed access to our data.

Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Act, police forces, the intelligence services, customs and excise and the inland revenue were handed the right to sniff through our communications. Now any Tom Dick or virtual Harry can check on what websites we visit, who we speak to on the phone and track our mobile phone signal to see where we are.

The Home Office says the move is a necessary one in order to fight terrorism and crime in the communications age. But civil liberties groups are up in arms, aware that a Big Brother style poilce state is just around the corner.

Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, told the Guardian: "The Home Office has absolutely breached its commitment that this law would not become a general surveillance power for the government. The exhaustive list of organisations who will be able to access data without a court order proves that this amounts to a systematic attack on the right to privacy."

Also under threat are journalists who fill find it increasinly difficult to protect their sources.

Removing the necessity of a court order to investigate an individual's communications will mean that any jumped-up official with an axe to grind could find out what you're up to. The ability of local authoirities to track our communications is quite a scary one. I dunno about you but where I live, local government is a virtual mason's monopoly. Can we trust all these new bodies with our data?

The Home Office says, "all the bodies on the draft order have powers related to preventing crime. The aim is to bring them under the tighter regulatory framework of the RIP act."

The legislation is likely to come into effect in August. From then on it'll just take a phone call from a local authority or, er, food standards official to your ISP and all your data will be theirs. µ