Posted by
Greg Mattok on Friday, January 09, 2009 8:14:57 PM
Laws requiring the storage of information on all outgoing e-mail messages, causing criticism in Britain.
Since March, all British companies providing Internet services,
will be required during the year to store data on each of the outgoing
e-mail messages. In contrast to the time of shipment and the
recipient's name, the content of the messages will not be stored.
Innovation is part of the EU Directive, and may cost the British taxpayer in the amount of 25 to 70 million pounds.
The government called it a way of combating crime and terrorism.
However, the idea raised protests among human rights activists,
claiming that the storage of information about the letters sent to
infringe citizens' rights to privacy. Among the critics, there are
economists, and representatives of the Internet industry.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Britain, argue that data
storage "will allow investigators to identify the identity of the
suspects, to learn about their contacts to determine the connection
between the conspirators and to establish their exact location at the
time."
Under the new law, providers will be required to provide
information on request sent by e-mail letters to a number of government
organizations, a list which includes the police, local councils and
health services.
Invasion of privacy
The head of the human rights organization Liberty Shami
Chakrabarti concerned, that will be the next step the British
authorities.
"The Government has already understand about the plans not only to
force ISPs to store all the data, but also create a central government
database in which they will keep all information" - said Chakrabarti.
I would be very pleased with where I saw, to investigate crimes on the Internet took more police
Richard Clayton,
researcher at the University of Cambridge
In criticizing the new law not only human rights but also representatives of companies providers.
According to Malcolm Hatti from the Association of Internet
providers, it is unclear that we should do the companies themselves.
According Hatti, stored on paper of every sent email message must all
providers.
At the same time, Britain's Ministry of Internal Affairs
informally makes it clear that for small firms, service providers will
be an exception. The uncertainty makes the owners of growing businesses
to fear, not whether the authorities of the company increased provider
accountability for the period when the company only started to work.
Senior researcher at the computer lab at the University of
Cambridge, Richard Clayton believes that in times of economic crisis,
the authorities could find a better use of money to citizens than to
keep the billions of letters - which includes including spam.
"I would be very pleased with where I saw, to investigate crimes on the Internet took more police," - said Clayton.
This initiative - not the first attempt of the British authorities
to get greater access to personal information about citizens.
Already, the British phone companies keep data on telephone accounts and numbers, which placed the call.
This year, as expected, the government will discuss the creation
of an information base, which will store information about each text
message, email and telephone calls made by any of the citizens of the
United Kingdom.
Every day in Britain via e-mail sent to nearly 3 billion messages.