Wowsers writes:
The UK is about to have a new law in place that allows a vast number of public bodies to have access to a whole range of private data, most notably phone call information, finally completing the current UK governments project of making the country's population as spied upon and subjugated as the East German Stazi did on their population. It is of interest that the UK already has the most CCTV cameras in the world per population, and the largest criminal DNA database in the world (with over 1 million innocent people on it including 6 month olds).
Officials from the top of Government to lowly council officers will be given unprecedented powers to access details of every phone call in Britain under laws coming into force tomorrow.
The new rules compel phone companies to retain information, however private, about all landline and mobile calls, and make them available to some 795 public bodies and quangos.
The move, enacted by the personal decree of Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, will give police and security services a right they have long demanded: to delve at will into the phone records of British citizens and businesses.
By 2009 the Government plans to extend the rules to cover internet use: the websites we have visited, the people we have emailed and phone calls made over the net.
Full story here:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=484752
