Plan to monitor all internet use
Source: BBC
It is fresh out of 1984:
“Communications firms are being asked to record all internet contacts between people as part of a modernisation in UK police surveillance tactics.”
This sounds more like an Orwellification in police tactics, not a benign “modernisation”.
“The home secretary scrapped plans for a database but wants details to be held and organised for security services.”
The article gives enough information to believe that the new plan is exactly the same as the “plans for a database”, only that the information will be “organised” in a different way, a way in which they cannot attribute “database” to its title.
“The new system would track all e-mails, phone calls and internet use, including visits to social network sites.”
A system which tracks data in such a way, requires a database, at some point, to store the information - that is obvious. The fact the the BBC has just eaten up and regurgitate the Press releases from the Home Office in such a crude way is, of course, appalling.
“The Home Office will instead ask communications companies - from internet service providers to mobile phone networks - to extend the range of information they currently hold on their subscribers and organise it so that it can be better used by the police, MI5 and other public bodies investigating crime and terrorism.”
“Ministers say they estimate the project will cost £2bn to set up, which includes some compensation to the communications industry for the work it may be asked to do.”
“Security services could then seek to examine this data along with information which links it to specific devices, such as a mobile phone, home computer or other device, as part of investigations into criminal suspects.”