UK net super-snooping clashes with Euro privacy law - expert

The personal information that must be stored on record about you

Telecoms firms are required to retain identifying details of phone calls and emails, such as the traffic and location, to help the police detect and investigate serious crimes, the Directive states. The details exclude the content of those communications.

Law enforcement bodies in the UK also already have the power to intercept individuals' communications in certain circumstances. RIPA enables law enforcement bodies to intercept communications by requiring telecoms providers to hand over certain information they hold.

Telecoms companies have a duty under RIPA to hand over communications data it has or could obtain about customers when asked to do so by police unless "it is not reasonably practicable" to do so. The Home Secretary can ask the courts to issue an injunction "or any other appropriate relief" against telecoms firms that fail to comply with their duty under RIPA. The type of injunction that courts can issue is not defined by RIPA.

However, first the law enforcement bodies must obtain the Home Secretary's authorisation to intercept the communications.

Under RIPA the Home Secretary has to assess whether the request to intercept communications is necessary and proportionate in order to protect the UK's national security interests, prevent and detect terrorism and serious crime or to safeguard the UK's economic well-being.

Under the Act the Home Secretary must consider certain factors relating to the necessity and proportionality of any interception before authorising it, including "whether the information which it is thought necessary to obtain under the warrant could reasonably be obtained by other means".

The Act can be used by law enforcement agencies to force telecoms companies to hand over customers' details in order to tap phone, internet or email communications.

Wynn said that ISPs and social media networks could face technological challenges in complying with real time access requests and that GCHQ would face "information overload" unless real time access was suitably focused.

"Whether it is feasible or not to access real time communications data without the content of those communications being disclosed depends on whether there is the technology available to deliver that information quickly – otherwise ISPs will struggle to comply through no fault of their own," Wynn said.

"Given the enormous number of transactions involved there is also the danger that GCHQ will suffer from information overload, trying to sift through millions of calls, emails, texts and web visits to find what they are looking for in real time, rather than analysing patterns in historic data instead.”

The Home Office said communications data was "vital" to law enforcement investigations into "serious crime and terrorism and to protect the public," according to a report by the Guardian.

"We need to take action to maintain the continued availability of communications data as technology changes. Communications data includes time, duration and dialling numbers of a phone call, or an email address. It does not include the content of any phone call or email and it is not the intention of government to make changes to the existing legal basis for the interception of communications," the Home Office spokesman said.

"As set out in the Strategic Defence and Security Review we will legislate as soon as parliamentary time allows to ensure that the use of communications data is compatible with the government's approach to civil liberties," the spokesman said, according to a report by the BBC.

Under the Human Rights Act individuals are guaranteed the right to privacy surrounding their communications other than if a public authority, such as the police, believe it necessary to interfere with that right "in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others".

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