Government briefs ISPs on snooping plans

 

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By Matthew Sparkes

Posted on 6 Nov 2008 at 11:04

The Government has briefed several large ISPs on its plans to install "black-box" monitoring systems to track every phone call, text message and browsing session in the country.

The plan, first announced in May this year, forms part of the Government's Interception Modernisation Plan, intended to make monitoring communication among criminal and terrorist groups easier.

Current investigative techniques have been left behind by advances in digital communications, eroding the power to intercept any communication that police officers once had, before the emergence of the internet.

The scheme was outlined by the Home Office this week in a meeting with BT, AOL, O2 and Sky, where it was explained that monitoring devices would be installed on ISP's networks. These devices will track internet traffic before relaying data to a large centralised database where it could be used by security services, although warrants would sill be required to access information.

Smaller ISPs would be unaffected by the plans, as the system would be installed at a higher level of the infrastructure.

The proposal is expected to be sent out for consultation and added to a revised Communications Data Bill in early 2009, although it has drawn criticism from the Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, who labeled it a "step too far".

Little has been released publicly in the way of technical details, although the fact that the Home Office is approaching ISPs shows that it is keen to see this proposal put into action.

"This is a matter for the Government and BT has no comment to make," says a BT spokesperson, while O2 and Sky were unavailable for comment at the time of writing.