Back in October 2007 I posted about this Labour Governments move to allow over 650 public bodies legal access all of our mobile and land line phone records.
I said at the end of that first post that I would write to the Home Office to see if I could get some clarification as to who, what when etc. In early November I received a reply to my questions; however, circumstances delayed me posting about this before now.
The letter from a Simon Watkin dispels the notion that was…
…widely misreported as having been “enacted by the personal decree of the Home Secretary” and giving new powers to public authorities to obtain data. That was incorrect on both counts. The code was debated and approved by both Houses of Parliament and gave no powers to any public authority which did not already have them.
The letter also offers some links referring to previous Acts of Parliament that had allowed Public bodies unregulated access to our telephone call records!
- The Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Communications Data) Order 2003 (Statutory Instrument 2003 No. 3172)
- The Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Communications Data) (Amendment) Order 2005 (Statutory Instrument 2005 No. 1083)
- The Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Communications Data) (Additional Functions and Amendment) Order 2006 (Statutory Instrument 2006 No. 1878)
The letter also contains links to a March 2003, Access to Communications Data consultation paper that we were all able to comment on before the Act came in to being in October – you didn’t see this! So you won’t have seen any of the responses that were received!
Also here is the a link to the final document that forms the updated Act – Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.
And finally, the actual reply from the Home Office. This also contains a 14 page table of all of the “Public Authorities that can lawfully obtain all communications data (subscriber data, service use data and traffic data).”
It was sent to me as a Word file, but a PDF version is here.
Is this the last we will hear of this? I don’t think so. As the UK continues its steady move towards a total surveillance society, more and more private elements of our lives will come under scrutiny by this Labour government.
It’s very worrying that we don’t hear any of the other political parties standing up and shouting very loudly about the ongoing erosion of our freedom, the same could also be said about the mainstream media – I suppose there’s not enough celebrity about it!
Perhaps it’s a true conspiracy by all politicians to control the whole of the UK! I don’t know, what do you think?
Beasley's Place 