UK 'Snooper's Charter' Seeks To Eliminate Pesky Private Communications







As expected, the UK government has published its Draft Communications Bill
(pdf) -- better known as the "snooper's charter," since it requires
ISPs to record key information about every email sent and Web site
visited by UK citizens, and mobile phone companies to log all their
calls (landline information is already recorded).

Since this was only released a few hours ago, people are still trawling
through it to find out what delights it holds, but an eagle-eyed David Meyer has already spotted something rather extraordinary: the UK government seems to be proposing to log not just every IP packet, but every physical packet -- and letter, and postcard -- too.

That's thanks to Section 25 of the Draft, which states:

Part 1 [the main requirements to log
communications data] applies to public postal operators and public
postal services as it applies to telecommunications operators and
telecommunications services.


And if you were wondering what "communications data" means when applied to letters and postcards, it includes:

postal data comprised in or attached to a communication
(whether by the sender or otherwise) for the purposes of a postal
service by means of which it is being or may be transmitted

Letters, telephone calls, email and the Web -- this is a level of total
surveillance that countries like China, North Korea or Iran can only
dream of. What remains unclear is how the UK government will try to
gather this incredible flood of information, and whether it can access
it in real time. Here's what the site Privacy International thinks will happen:

The government today published a draft version of a bill
that, if signed into law in its current form, would force Internet
Service Providers (ISPs) and mobile phone network providers in Britain
to install 'black boxes' in order to collect and store information on
everyone's internet and phone activity, and give the police the ability
to self-authorise access to this information.

That article points out that two important questions on the Internet side of things remain unanswered:

However, the Home Office failed to explain whether or not
companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter will be brought under the
Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), and how they intend to
deal with HTTPS encryption.

When an official was pressed on that last point, he gave a rather disturbing reply:

At this morning's Home Office briefing, Director of the
Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism Charles Farr was asked about
how the black box technology would handle HTTPS encryption. His only
response was: "It will."

This is going to get very interesting.


http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120614/14141919329/uk-snoopers-charter-seeks-to-eliminate-pesky-private-communications.shtml