Privacy fear over plan to store email

[bongme]

hi

EU wants data retained to help fight against crime

Richard Norton-Taylor and Stuart Millar

Tuesday August 20, 2002

The Guardian

Records of personal communications, including all emails and telephone calls, will be stored for at least a year under a proposal to be decided by EU governments next month.

Under the plan, all telecommunications firms, including mobile phone operators and internet service providers, will have to keep the numbers and addresses of calls and emails sent and received by EU citizens. The information, known as traffic data, would be held in central computer systems and made available to all EU governments.

The move could lead to a further extension in the powers of European security and intelligence agencies, allowing them to see the contents of emails and intercepted calls and faxes, civil liberty groups fear.

The plan, drafted in Brussels, has been leaked to Statewatch, an independent group monitoring threats to privacy and civil liberties in the EU.

"The traffic data of the whole population of the EU - and the countries joining - is to be held on record. It is a move from targeted to potentially universal surveillance," Tony Bunyan, Statewatch editor, warned yesterday. "EU governments claimed that changes to the 1997 privacy directive would not be binding on member states - each national parliament would have to decide. Now we know that all along they were intending to make it compulsory across Europe."

Although the move was initially explained by the need to fight terrorism, EU officials now argue it is necessary to fight all serious crime, including paedophilia and racism.

A "draft framework decision" for the European council states that it is essential for all member states to apply the same rules. It said that the purpose was to harmonise the retention of traffic data to allow criminal investigation.

The decision is a victory for the UK which, encouraged by Washington, has been pushing for a compulsory EU-wide data retention regime.

But civil liberties campaigners claim that compelling communications companies to retain the records of all their customers for long periods amounts to blanket surveillance on the entire EU population and will lead to law enforcement agencies conducting "fishing expeditions" against innocent citizens.

The EU admits the plan involves an invasion of privacy but says the periods for which it must be retained - a minimum of 12 months and a maximum of 24 months - is "not disproportionate".

The data would include information identifying the source, destination, and time of a communication, as well as the personal details of the subscriber to any "communication device".

For law enforcement agencies to access the data, the draft EU decision gives a minimum list of offences, including "participation in a criminal organisation, terrorism, trafficking in human beings, sexual exploitation of children", drug trafficking, money-laundering, fraud, racism, hijacking and "motor vehicle crime".

It states that the "confidentiality and integrity" of retained traffic data must be "ensured" but does not say how. Individuals have no right to check whether the information held about their personal communications is accurate or legally challenge decisions about its use by EU authorities.

A member state will not be able to refuse a request for information from another member state on human rights or privacy grounds. There is also no common EU list of crimes caught by the plan or of public agencies which could demand the information.

But there is one element in the EU plan that the Britain will not welcome. It says that personal data could be handed to security services and law enforcement authorities only with judicial approval.

In Britain, the regulation of investigatory powers act allows law enforcement and intelligence agencies to access personal communications data covering a wide range of purposes, including public health and tax collection, without any court or executive warrant.

In June, the Guardian revealed plans to extend the powers to access data to all local councils, seven ministries and 11 quangos. David Blunkett, the home secretary, bowing to intense public and political pressure, admitted the government had "blundered" into the issue and that further consultation was needed.

But the legality of the entire data retention framework in this country has been cast into doubt. The information commissioner, Elizabeth France, has warned the Home Office that the new powers could be illegal because another law - the Anti-Terrorism Act rushed through parliament after the September 11 attacks - allows such data to be retained and accessed only on national security grounds. According to legal advice from an eminent QC, this would be illegal under human rights law.

Bongme

[Jammin]

Is there anything the general public can be doing to make it heard that plans like this are unwelcome. I mean cmon, doesnt talk of such things scare the shit out of anyone else??

[Wilbur Nutsack]

Scares me big-time. The next step will be giant parabolic microphone in the sky so you can’t even speak face to face without being recorded.

Our increasingly paranoid governments getting scared by technology. Do they not want to be asking why terrorists act and target the source of the problem rather than undermining every innocent persons privacy so that they can possibly hear a secret code word.

This is guaranteed to cause more problems at it solves.

Individuals have no right to check whether the information held about their personal communications is accurate or legally challenge decisions about its use by EU authorities.

Translation - We will do it how we want, as much as we want, and alter it how we want and there is nothing you can do about it.

Anyway...Are you telling me that terrorists dealing in missiles actually talk about it over a land line or send an email about it? I think we don’t credit them with enough intelligence if we think that they haven’t thought about the possibility of being heard. I bet the "traffic data" will be sold to advertising companies or something.

Bastards.. but it has been happening for years

http://fly.hiwaay.net/~pspoole/echelon.html

I don’t really know too much about it, but i do try to keep it in mind when on the phone. It leads to some very cryptic (and useless) code words

BTW, does anyone have any paranoid stories about talking on mobiles or landlines? Is there really a danger for indoor gardeners? I suspect the police have more urgent matters to attend.

I have recently bought another unregistered sim-card to cure my paranoia, it is the only way i will talk about anything illegal over the phone.

Off to cover the roof in tinfoil to stop "them" watching me.

Wilbur

[Otacon]

The longer I live, the more I see this happening.

It gets more and more extreme.

Scares me big-time. The next step will be giant parabolic microphone in the sky so you can’t even speak face to face without being recorded.

This idea is probably closer than any of us can imagine.

Digital Angel Personal Locator

Verichip

Combine those two technologies with mobile communications, and, what do you know? A complete big brother package ready to skull fuck you at a moments notice.

Stoner paranoid gibberish? Maybe. But the technology is there, and they want that type of control. All they need now is a large continant/world wide type event of horrific enough proportions to impose a total control/surveilance solution on us all.

In the meantime, if you really are bothered about people reading your emails and stuff, may I suggest PGP; an encryption program so good, the guy who wrote it got arrested.

I have a great deal of apathy when it comes to dealing with stuff like this. Even if I use PGP or whatever to encypt my emails, if someone really wants to find stuff about me, they can and, unless I am a total paranoid nutcase, I cant really stop them. Information is everywhere.

Take it EZ

Tre

Edited to try and use the quote button and failed... :: Also, I've got some information somewhere about how they watch unregistered SIM cards more than registered ones. I'll dig it out if your interested.

[Joolz]

They would need a hell of a big hard drive I'm thinking ...

Their building it right now

The new G.C.H.Q. has an underground computer room that covers the same area as four football pitches ( I'd say that was big enuff )

The old G.C.H.Q is a relic from the 'Cold War'.

The new one is without doubt 'BIG BROTHER'

It's hard for an outsider to imagine the immense size and sheer power of GCHQ's supercomputing architecture.

Our systems range from simple PC networks to the latest supercomputer complexes.

When you come to GCHQ, you'll encounter the latest state of the art Cray systems, Tandem based storage and high-end Sun workstations. D-RAID (Distributed Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) architectures are used for the storage of very large amounts of data. Indeed, GCHQ has one of the largest long-term bulk near line storage systems in the world.

The systems used by GCHQ are among the most secure in the world. All traffic, whether voice, fax or Local Area and Wide Area Networks (LANs and WANs) used for data communications are secured by state of the art cryptographic products - designed and manufactured internally.

A number of these products are also supplied to other UK Government Departments and Agencies by GCHQ/CESG, which invented and developed Public-key cryptography.

TELECOMMUNICATIONS

GCHQ is involved in all aspects of modern telecommunications. We use a wide variety of systems designed to operate on all frequencies over which data can be transmitted. GCHQ is an acknowledged world leader in antenna design and systems analysis.

NETWORKING

All GCHQ systems are linked together on the largest local area network in Europe - which is connected to other sites around the world via one of the largest wide area networks on earth.

Our local area network is based on a number of media, including Ethernet and Fibre Distributed Data Interface (FDDI), and its main networking protocol is Internet Protocol (IP). The wide area network uses very high-speed dial up and leased lines. Protected by cryptographic equipment designed, manufactured and tested internally. We are also considering asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) links for it

http://www.gchq.gov.uk/

[Joolz]

Also, I've got some information somewhere about how they watch unregistered SIM cards more than registered ones. I'll dig it out if your interested.

Interested

[Wilbur Nutsack]

I'll second that, i'm really interested to know how much and how easily "they" can get info from mobile calls. I know that they store text messages for at least a week and look out for frequent short mobile calls, but what else and to what extent?

Wilbur

[mickle]

I would personally work on the assumption that all calls and emails allready are available to be monitored.

look at echelon, that is a US system that monitors outside the US (yep that means us) allready.

The only solution re:emails is encryption. We should all encrypt our emails to a high degree as standard (of course that makes it potentially more interesting).

[Labrat]

I dislike the whole notion as much as anyone, but it does look as if the EU plan is a distinct improvement on RIPA, which gives access to practically anyone.

But there is one element in the EU plan that the Britain will not welcome. It says that personal data could be handed to security services and law enforcement authorities only with judicial approval.

In Britain, the regulation of investigatory powers act allows law enforcement and intelligence agencies to access personal communications data covering a wide range of purposes, including public health and tax collection, without any court or executive warrant.

Now all thats required is to convince the government that this country actually IS part of the EU.

[oldmoss]

notes attached to pigeons for me from now on !!

Careful could be a stool pigeon