Yesterday (3rd May 2009) The Register, a UK online technology publisher, along with the Sunday Times published details on how the government’s surveillance service GCHQ is building a system to monitor all UK internet traffic and telephone calls.
The GCHQ project is called “Mastering the Internet” (MTI) which sums it all up perfectly!
The articles quote sources as saying that the UK Government through its various agencies is spending up to £1 billion on MTI projects – just to keep an eye on you and the bad guys!
The Register article says “It will grant intelligence staff in Cheltenahm complete visibility of UK Internet traffic, allowing them to remotely configure their deep packet inspection probes to intercept data – both communications data and the communication content – on demand.”
Since the revelations GCHQ has issued a press notice today (4th May 2009) denying that it will track all UK internet and phone usage. It said “GCHQ is not developing technology to enable the monitoring of all internet use and phone calls in Britain, or to target everyone in the UK.”
Well that’s OK then! Let’s not worry about this again.
