Big Brother Will Have His 3rd Eye: Jacqui Smith’s SuperDatabase Plan

Jacqui Smith, The Home Secretary is preparing to pass what has been dubbed a “personal data hell house” by the mainstream press. Within weeks the home secretary will outline options for a UK-wide centralised superdatabase. 

One of the biggest assaults on human rights in modern history: The database is to track the telephone and Internet records of Brits and would be accompanied by tough sanctions against leaks or information security breaches.

TXT Messaging, Cellphone communications, Fixed Line Communications, Voice over IP communications (including services like Skype), Email, Instant messaging (including MSN Live Messenger), Internet Search queries, Online Identities, Cellphone Contacts lists, Email Contacts lists, and Profile Site (like Myspace, Bebo and Facebook) communications are all rumored to be included in the proposed database which will provide security forces with live information on all of the above.

Sir Ken Macdonald, the former director of public prosecutions, told The Guardian that the proposed assurances on information security under consideration by the government are nothing but a facade that is likely to crumble sooner rather than later.

“Authorisations for access might be written into statute. The most senior ministers and officials might be designated as scrutineers. But none of this means anything. All history tells us that reassurances like these are worthless in the long run. In the first security crisis the locks would loosen,” Macdonald said.

Legislation to establish the superdatabase was postponed in October in favour of a further round of consultation by the Home Office. The Home Secretary argues that a database on call records (including location but not the actual content of conversations and SMS) and internet use data is needed as part of plans to modernise the UK’s existing interception regime. As things stand, ISPs and telcos supply such data in response to requests by law enforcement agencies or the security services.

Estimates for the cost of establishing a super-database suggest it might cost anything up to £12bn ($17.4bn), or twice as expensive as the ID cards scheme. Ministers hope that putting the project into the hands of the private sector will help to reduce costs.

Macdonald argued that creating the über-database represents a further move towards a Big Brother-style “surveillance society”. He further argued that, over time, and especially in the event of a security crisis, more and more officials would be given access to information on the database.

“The tendency of the state to seek ever more powers of surveillance over its citizens may be driven by protective zeal. But the notion of total security is a paranoid fantasy which would destroy everything that makes living worthwhile. We must avoid surrendering our freedom as autonomous human beings to such an ugly future. We should make judgments that are compatible with our status as free people,”

“This database would be an unimaginable hell-house of personal private information. It would be a complete readout of every citizen’s life in the most intimate and demeaning detail. No government of any colour is to be trusted with such a roadmap to our souls.”

Estimates for the cost of establishing a super-database suggest it might cost anything up to £12bn ($17.4bn), or twice as expensive as the ID cards scheme. Ministers hope that putting the project into the hands of the private sector will help to reduce costs.

Andrew Rawnsley on Politics Home made the following statement  in response to a question to their “Expert Panel 100″ panel:

 

Jacqui Smith is being cast as Big Brother – though perhaps that should be Big Mother – over plans to further extend the amount of information on citizens held by the state. The terrorism watchdog is one of those concerned with the idea of a database holding information about every phone call, email and internet visit.

The Home Secretary will go ahead regardless of strong opposition.

A big majority (seventy three per cent) of the politically balanced panel think that Ministers intend to proceed anyway. Only a small minority of the panel (seven per cent) think that there will not be strong opposition to the database scheme.

About a quarter of the panel (twenty six per cent) reckon the Government will drop the plan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments from panellists are almost uniformly hostile to the proposal.

One panel member calls the plan ‘intrusive, illiberal and a waste of money.’

Another panellist remarks: ‘The Government is obsessed with this sort of stuff while people increasingly worry about their privacy and the Government’s true intentions.’

A third panel member reckons that Ministers are under pressure from the spooks: ‘It will proceed more slowly and tentatively than 42 days but security services are 100% behind this one so goverment can’t drop it.’

A fourth panellist rages: ‘The plan is mad, bad and dangerous, but that never seems to stop loony tune security ideas being pursued by Brown and Smith.’

References:

http://www.mattwardman.com/blog/2008/10/17/the-big-brother-database-jacqui-smith-will-carry-on-regardless/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/31/superdatabase_latest/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/dec/31/privacy-civil-liberties

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/feb/13/laws-communication-superdatabase

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/feb/06/surveillance-freedom-peers