No Email Privacy?!

[Libby]

From March all internet service providers (ISPs) will by law have to keep information about every e-mail sent or received in the UK for a year.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7819230.stm


Another invasion of our privacy?!

[kog]

I believe they are not going to keep the body of the email, just the details of the email at around £24 million to the tax payer.


Besides, I wouldn't recomend anyone send anything of importance/private nature via email since in many cases its sent as clear text

[cryptonomiumo]

It's done already anyway, and really is it much different to companies keeping records of letters sent?

[Libby]

Surely there are better ways to spend this vast sum of money. More Police, more nurses, greater security, the list is endless. I suppose the argument would be that by storing this email information it is indeed protecting security.

[Beachcomber]

If they desperately want to keep track of all my e-mails I'll gladly add them to my address book and make sure they receive a copy of each and every one.

(they can re-imburse me my share of the £24 million)

[Libby]

My emails don't contain anything too personal either, so it doesn't bother me either. I guess it's just the issue of sooner or later every database will know more about us than we do! lol! Surely this will make identity fraud easier for the unscrupulous?!

[cryptonomiumo]

<Shrug> It's already done. ISPs have been keeping details of such traffic for years. This simply formalises the policy. Not sure it's necessary, but it doesn't change much.

It certainly doesn't cost any significant sum over what was being spent on keeping the records already.

[cryptonomiumo]

It doesn't worry me particularly having my emails read

This has nothing to do with anyone being able to read your emails.

[Beachcomber]

"(ISPs) will by law have to keep information about every e-mail sent or received"

Surely every e-mail sent would be the same as the e-mails received - so collecting both seems a waste of time and effort

[Libby]

I think they are just after the addresses not the content of the emails. So they would collect the sender's email address and then the recipient's address.

[Deleted]

Why do they want the addresses?

[Libby]

Quote from the article ~

The Home Office insists the data, which does not include e-mails' content, is vital for crime and terror inquiries.

[cruciverbalist]

What concerns me is the number of people who are happy to sleepwalk into this. I really think it is time we started to analyse exactly how this data can be used and who will have access to it. It seems odd to me that we are a nation of fence-building, hedge-planting, net-curtain-hanging privacy junkies who still believe in the adage "An Englishman's Home is his Castle" and yet we couldn't give a toss whether some psycho who is smart enough to be employed in a government department can read our mail!! If the Royal Mail suddenly insisted on opening all our envelopes we'd be going mental! The British people need to wake up because in just a few years time there will be enough information on all of us on data bases that get left on bars in Whitehall pubs, for our identities to be tradeable commodities on the world's black markets.

[cllrpeterevans]

The idea that keeping emails would assist the police to combat crime is just silly. If any organisation was intent on using emails it would restrict it to a sophisticated code (like wartime wireless messages) that would be meaningless to anyone else.
Law enforcement agencies can already monitor a suspect. I abhor the idea of a general dogsbody having access to personal information unless it is essential to provide that individual with a service. I question the right of LGA Chief Executives and designated civil servants being given the right to snoop when they are clearly not trained to handle evidence like an impartial police officer. It smacks of political malevolence afoot!

[puffin]

I think there are a lot of people who are very unhappy about it but unfortunately have no power to stop it happening.

[cathy]

I sent a very rude email to some friends over Christmas and they were so shocked they forwarded it on to all their friends!

I think perhaps I won't be doing that in future ... even if they say the content of the email won't be kept.

[newyorker]

Massive invasion of privacy, you should be outraged and there should be an uproar over this in the UK. That is the equivalent of the government opening every piece of physical mail you get.

Wow, the American Revolution, a good idea then, a good idea now.

[Libby]

It just makes me wonder where it will all end, and what will be scrutinised next that we do?!

[Rude Eric]

it is those that have something to hide that object to this type of thing.

[Victor Meldrew]

it is those that have something to hide that object to this type of thing.

Ah, not the old "it's only those who something to fear..." argument again. No, it has nothing to do with those who have something to hide, because such individuals/groups wouldn't be stupid enough to use a system of communication which they knew either was or could be monitored. It's just down to good old civil liberties and the erosion thereof.

In fact, I'm old enough to remember when the very same "if you have nothing to hide" arguments were being levelled at the people of your own political persuasion during the Thatcher Government. Your lot didn't take too kindly to that sort of explanation, so why should we accept it now. Strange how what goes around comes around.