Downing Street Says » Government’s communications data plans

» Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Government’s communications data plans

When asked for the Prime Minister’s response to allegations that the plans would allow the Government and other agencies to snoop’ on the web browsing activity and emails of ordinary people, the PMS said that the Strategic Defence and Security Review had clearly set out that the Government planned to legislate to bring forward changes. Asked if the plans would be included in the Queen’s Speech, the PMS stated that he would not speculate on the contents of the Queens Speech.

In response to a question about whether the plans would infringe civil liberties, the PMS said that communications data was information on the time, duration and dialling numbers of a phone call, not the content of that phone call and that was an important distinction.
He added that we would need to maintain our current capabilities in this area as technology changed.

Asked whether the new powers would allow the Government ability to look at the content of people’s emails, the PMS said that communications data was not the same as content. Communications data was used currently in 95 per cent of all serious crime and terrorism cases.

When asked if the changes would mean that Internet Service Providers would have to store more data than do now, the PMS said that we would need to ensure we are up-to-date with technological changes. He said that there was already an EU directive that covers the retention of a lot of communications data.

When asked if the taxpayer or industry would be expected to fund this, the PMS said that that further details would be outlined in due course.

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