NationStates Jolt Archive


The Government has dropped plans to store txts and e-mails.

Ring of Isengard
29-04-2009, 15:47
Dunno if anyones done a thread on this but, meh.

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/04/27/internet-database-britain.html
The Parkus Empire
29-04-2009, 15:50
Good for Britain.

Though I still find this disturbing:

Instead, the government said it was backing a "middle way" that would see service providers store and organize information on every individual's phone and internet traffic so that it could be accessed by police and other authorities on request.

The Home Office estimated introducing the new system would cost up to £2 billion ($3.54 billion Cdn).

Under current rules, British internet service providers are already required to store records of web and email traffic for a year. The new proposals would also require them to retain details of communications that originated in other countries but passed across British networks — for example if someone in Britain accessed a U.S.-based email account.
Londim
29-04-2009, 15:54
So basically there will be a storage system where over half the information will be "LOL"?
Ring of Isengard
29-04-2009, 15:56
Good for Britain.

Though I still find this disturbing:

It's getting to be a bit like China/N Korea. It's kinda scary.
The One Eyed Weasel
29-04-2009, 16:00
Still bullshit. Instead of having a government database, the private companies will have a database.

Big fucking deal. Way to go England. :rolleyes:
Ring of Isengard
29-04-2009, 16:04
Still bullshit. Instead of having a government database, the private companies will have a database.

Big fucking deal. Way to go England. :rolleyes:

Still an improvement though.
Charlotte Ryberg
29-04-2009, 16:10
I responded to the consultation suggesting a law in which British citizens could get themselves off the net for total privacy. I think I wrote to Mr. G. Cox MP.
Lunatic Goofballs
29-04-2009, 16:11
So basically there will be a storage system where over half the information will be "LOL"?

The world's largest collection of spam in history. :)
The Parkus Empire
29-04-2009, 16:27
The world's largest collection of spam in history. :)

And "sexting"....
Exilia and Colonies
29-04-2009, 16:44
Still bullshit. Instead of having a government database, the private companies will have a database.

Big fucking deal. Way to go England. :rolleyes:

This is even worse. Private companies won't lose the information.
Eofaerwic
29-04-2009, 16:53
Good for Britain.

Though I still find this disturbing:

It's somewhat worrying, though it's important to note that in many ways it's an extension of pre-existing requirements for phone records and chances are this data is already recorded, at least temporarily, but the companies. Now there's just a requirement for them to keep it a bit longer (and note it's not content of communications - so it really it just like phone records).

To be honest I'm most interested in exactly what legislation about privacy the private companies are subject to (data protection laws are quite strong in this area if I remeber rightly) and more importantly how many hoops the government has to go through to get the information. If the require an official warrant, with probable cause of serious criminal offence - as you would need to get access to a lot of records, then I'm somewhat less worried. It's certainly better than a centralised database the government can effectively access at will.
Longhaul
29-04-2009, 16:54
Still bullshit. Instead of having a government database, the private companies will have a database.

Does anyone actually believe that their ISPs aren't storing that sort of information anyway?

I'm actually quite intrigued by this... I wonder if a subject access request under the Data Protection Act would require my ISP to cough up a full browsing history for my last n years of Internet wandering. It'd be a great laugh to browse through a record of my browsing.

Come to think of it, they might submit their reply to me by email which would mean that, in future, I could make more requests and then spend time browsing through records of me browsing through my previous browsing. Infinite recursion, ahoy :tongue:
Rambhutan
29-04-2009, 16:58
I still don't see how the government is planning to use this amount of information in any way which is useful.
Eofaerwic
29-04-2009, 17:00
Does anyone actually believe that their ISPs aren't storing that sort of information anyway?


A lot of them are - in fact I'm almost certain all of them do for at least a short period of time, to allow traffic monitoring, usage statistics etc... Most are doing so for longer periods of time voluntarily - this just makes it clear for how long and under what circumstances the government can access it.

Edit: Rambhutan - criminal investigations, in the same way that phone records are useful for this. Can allow both developing ideas of social networks when it comes to moving stolen goods etc to finding about the movements/social contacts of say a muder victim in the last 24 hours before they died. I can see the use - I just want to make sure they're only used for those purposes, ie needing warrant/probable cause to access it.
Cameroi
30-04-2009, 08:12
governments will do anything and say anything. sometimes what they do resembles what they say and sometimes it doesn't.

reality in the u.s. is the datamining hardware is in place and pretty much everything goes through it. and to be expectied, it accumulates more nonsense then anyone could ever go through and make sense out of in a gazillion years if they hired all of us to do go through and do so.

occasionally something tragically stupid is done with it, but mostly there's so much its kind of a meaningless overload, that of course tax payer dollars have been spent to accumulate.

its as much insane as it is threatining, though of course it is, to some degree, the latter too.

of course the potential for tremendous abuse is there, but what will actually happen, no one knows. what i suspect though, is eventually all that will be just like the slowly rusting dewline stations accross canada and alaska. remember those. like some of the missle siloes not far from where i live. abondond, demiliterized, expensive to create, totally abondond ghost boondoggles.

i think eventually that is what all this datamining stuff is going to end up becoming. even the hardware and physical facillaties for it. whatever the excuse, i don't really see it as likely to protect anyone from anything. just another totally self serving way of providing lucrative, corrupt, under the table, brother in law contracts.

just like the bulk of so called 'defence' spending.
greed and death
30-04-2009, 08:19
I never understood the reasoning. the spam would make it almost impossible to find something unless you had another reason to look at him/her.
The One Eyed Weasel
30-04-2009, 15:45
This is even worse. Private companies won't lose the information.

Well, they probably would. Human after all and all that. Besides, if they don't lose it, they could probably sell it to the right person that wants to blackmail the shit out of you. (Really out there hypothetical I know)

Does anyone actually believe that their ISPs aren't storing that sort of information anyway?

I'm actually quite intrigued by this... I wonder if a subject access request under the Data Protection Act would require my ISP to cough up a full browsing history for my last n years of Internet wandering. It'd be a great laugh to browse through a record of my browsing.

Come to think of it, they might submit their reply to me by email which would mean that, in future, I could make more requests and then spend time browsing through records of me browsing through my previous browsing. Infinite recursion, ahoy :tongue:

Yeah, they definitely are. But the part that torques my nuts is that the government will/does pay these ISPs for storage with taxpayer dollars for storing personal information of the taxpayer.

It may be just me, but something is seriously wrong with that picture.
Chumblywumbly
30-04-2009, 17:40
I wonder if a subject access request under the Data Protection Act would require my ISP to cough up a full browsing history for my last n years of Internet wandering.
I'd imagine so, they're under legal obligation to give you all information regarding yourself... that would seem to include net usage.

£10 well spent, I'd say.