New law being implemented in March as part of an EC Directive, will require internet service providers (ISPs) to keep information about every e-mail sent or received by every person in the UK for a period 12 months.
Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act passed in 2000 and the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001 (Part 11), companies like Telcos and some ISPs are already under an obligation to keep this information in case it is needed by a police or security service investigation. The existing European Data Retention Directive also seeks to ensure that investigators have access to this information for the purpose of police investigation, as they do under UK law, but does not call for centralised, government-run databases as is predicted will evolve from the new e-mail laws.
Under the new provisions, details of which can be found in the Consultation pubslished in August 2008, not only will ISPs collate data from an estimate of three billion emails per day, but they will also be paid between £25 and £70 million to ensure that they obey the law. Critics argue that spending billions to keep tabs on someone on the off chance that they may be a criminal is not a productive use of tax payer’s money. It is interesting to note that although the data is said by the Home Office to be useful to combating crime, only the timing, number and location of each communication are kept; the content is not stored. Although privacy laws would have something to say about it, what is the use or storing the emails for combatting crime if the content is not stored? Is there in reality another purpose behind the measures?
To further exacerbate criticism, although on paper the new law will apply to all ISPs, the Home Office is apparently planning for small ISPs to be exempt. But what happens when our criminal friend doesn’t get caught as he’s using a small ISP, after the government has spent billions in attempting to catch him?
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