[Infowarrior] - UK spawns new unit to expand internet surveillance

[Richard Forno]

Home Office spawns new unit to expand internet surveillance
By Chris Williams
Posted in Government, 28th January 2010 12:02 GMT
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/28/imp_ccd/

Exclusive The Home Office has created a new unit to oversee a massive  
increase in surveillance of the internet, The Register has learned,  
quashing suggestions the plans are on hold until after the election.

The new Communications Capabilities Directorate (CCD) has been created  
as a structure to implement the £2bn Interception Modernisation  
Programme (IMP), sources said.

The CCD is staffed by the same officials who have have been working on  
IMP since 2007, but it establishes the project on a more formal basis  
in the Home Office. It is not yet included on the Home Office's list  
of directorates.

The intelligence and law enforcement agencies have pushed hard for new  
laws to force communications providers to store details of who  
contacts whom, when, where and how via the internet.

However, following a consultation last year, when the Home Office's  
plans were heavily criticised by ISPs and mobile companies, it was  
widely assumed progress on IMP would slow or stop. The CCD has  
continued meeting with industry to try to allay concerns about the  
project's costs, effect on customer privacy and technical feasibility.

"The Home Office has long been working with communications service  
providers to take forward legislation providing for the retention of  
communications data," a Home Office spokesman said. "That is  
continuing."

"More recently, we have been considering how, in a changing  
communications environment, lawful acquisition of communications data  
and interception of communications can continue to save lives, to  
counter terrorism, to detect crime and prosecute offenders, and to  
protect the public."

Officials envisage communications providers will maintain giant  
databases of everything their customers do online, incluing email,  
social networking, web browsing and making VoIP calls. They want  
providers to process the mass of data to link it to individuals, to  
make it easier for authorities to access.

Access to communications data is currently governed by the Regulation  
of Investigatory Powers Act. Under European legslation ISPs are  
required to retain basic information about what their customers do  
online, but not to open their data packets to record who they contact  
on Facebook, for example.

The Home Office spokesman added: "This is a diverse range of activity  
now organised within a single Communications Capabilities Directorate  
with its focus on work under current legislation.

"The Directorate will continue to consider the challenges posed by new  
technologies, working closely with communications service providers  
and others to bring forward proposals that command public confidence  
and demonstrate an appropriate balance between privacy and security."

Work is also continuing at GCHQ in Cheltenham on its classified  
Mastering the Internet programme, which is developing systems and  
methods for extracting intelligence from the huge volumes of new  
surveillance data online services can generate. ®