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The new Communications Data Bill proposed by the Home Office has met the opposition of the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) which has shown concerns related to the proposals of building one Government-owned database with records of phone calls, email and Internet use in the UK.

In ICO's opinion, the action is not justified. "If the intention is to bring all mobile and internet records together under one system, this would give us serious concerns and may well be a step too far. We are not aware of any justification for the state to hold every UK citizen's phone and internet records. (...) We have real doubts that such a measure can be justified, or is proportionate or desirable. We have warned before that we are sleepwalking into a surveillance society. Holding large collections of data is always risky - the more data that is collected and stored, the bigger the problem when the data is lost, traded or stolen" said Jonathan Bamford, assistant Information Commissioner.

ICO is worried not only in connection to breaches of civil liberties but also about the amount of power the Government will get over the information. "Such a measure would require wider public discussion. Proper safeguards would be needed to ensure that the data is only used for the proper purpose of detecting crime" stated Bamford.

There are also doubts that the Government is able to guaranty the safety of the system against internal as well as external misuse. The system might prove too massive to be properly managed by the Government, ending up in a huge loss of public money.

The concerns are also related to the fact the UK Government has a bad history in keeping personal private data. As previously reported in the EDRI-gram, HM Revenue and Customs lost 25 million people's personal details in November, the Army lost a large amount of data with stolen laptops and a contractor to the DVLA lost three million drivers' personal details in December.

Privacy watchdog opposes giant telecoms database (27.05.2008)
http://www.out-law.com//default.aspx?page=9147

Home Office calls for a 'Big Brother' database (22.05.2008)
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/108305

EDRI gram - UK Government will store all phone, Internet traffic data (21.05.2008)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number6.10/uk-isp-traffic-data

EDRi-gram: Personal sensitive data keep on being lost in UK (30.01.2008)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number6.2/uk-losing-personal-data