BT was planning to go into partnership with web tracking technology company Phorm to deliver targeted ads at its customers.  The technology is suspect because Phorm would track all of your activity on the web to determine which ads to display to you on its partner sites.  Up to now ISPs have been relatively benign in analysing their customer’s surfing activity.

Privacy campaigners have vigorously questioned how user’s data and privacy would be protected.  The debate also spawned a petition on the Prime Minister’s No 10 Petitions website.

It is understood that Virgin Media and TalkTalk both still have the option to deploy the Phorm technology.

Will BT’s decision affect them?

A recent edition of  BBC program “Who’s Watching You” has revealed that UK police forces, with the knowledge of the UK government, is building a national grid network of ANPR cameras.

ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) cameras automatically read the number plate of passing cars and check with DVLA databases whether the vehicle is correctly registered, taxed and insured.  Normally the cameras are used by police to stop offending drivers immediately.

However, the linkage of the police, council and other CCTV cameras into a nationwide network and central database means that authorities will now be able to track vehicles across cities and the whole country without anyone knowing.  The database will link together sitings of a particular vehicle into a timestamped journey around the country.  Since the system will automatically record all vehicles it will allow users of the database to retrospectively track any vehicle.

The system, supposedly as an aid to track major criminals and terrorists, will now enable police forces to be able to monitor individuals for whatever reason as they drive around the countryside.

Worryingly, the police will not have to obtain court orders, or account for any of their actions.  You could be tracked and identified as a potential criminal or terrorist just because your travel pattern matches a pre-determined suspect pattern.

As the BBC article highlights an anti-war protester (a legal activity) was added to a list of suspects for ANPR tracking.  As he drove into London he was stopped by an anti-terrorist unit.

There is no monitoring of how the police use the data or any checks to ensure that suspects are being tracked legitimately.

Of course real terrorists and criminals use false plates, change vehicles regularly, or use stolen vehicles so it makes you wonder what the real justification and purpose of this network is!

The trials have been performed by a Dutch company called Sound Intelligence.  As you pass by, the CCTV camera analyses the tone of your voice rather than what you are actually saying.  Presumably if you sound stressed then you are likely to be a terrorist or mad, upon which the Big Brother police can swoop down and take you away for the good of society.

What’s next – listening in on your conversation on the street listening for significant words – like “bomb” or “airport” ????  Or maybe tapping into your phone calls or e-mails for stress or significant words.  Oh, I forgot, they are already planning to do that.

Maybe they decided to trial it in Scotland to see if it could cope with the strong Scottish accent!

Via BBC

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.

Via The Register,  Sunday Times Online, BBC

Speaking to the BBC the article quotes Zimmerman as saying “The UK is risking sliding unwittingly into a police state because of the growing use of surveillance technology”.

Zimmerman is famous for inventing the PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) e-mail encryption technology.

Interestingly he goes on to say that electronic surveillance of UK citizens by the authorities is becoming too easy.  He says that if surveillance were made harder then reduction of civil liberties would be more seriously debated.

Via BBC

Photo by Oranje

The BBC reports today that the UK Government Home Office colluded with internet tracking firm Phorm.

It appears that the Home Office were working with Phorm in drawing up guidance advice on targeted adverts.  Home Office officials also offered “personal” advice as to whether the technology acted as an interception of communications, and whether it was lawful or not.

Phorm proposes to monitor users internet usage in conjunction with partner ISPs (such as BT) to deliver targeted behavioural adverts to internet users.  BT has already trialled the Phorm technology without warning users that their personal and private web-surfing habits were being recorded and analysed by Phorm.  Privacy experts are worried about the Phorm technology because it performs what is known as deep packet inspection of internet traffic.

DPI will allow ISPs and companies such as Phorm to see exactly what a web surfer or e-mailer is doing on the internet.

There is a debate as to whether DPI counts as communications interception for which a legal warrent is required in the UK. In April 2009 the EU started legal action against Britain for allowing data interception without users consent.

Via BBC

The UK Government recently introduced new laws requiring all ISPs and telecommunication companies to record details about all internet traffic, e-mails and telephone calls that pass through their systems.

In the survey 60% of Britons rejected the European directive requiring all communications to be recorded to help crack down on criminals.

It appears that people don’t trust the UK Government to store and analyse the data correctly.

Maybe the Government wants to keep track of all that Viagra spam you’ve been receiving?

The organisers Zoom say “…We don’t believe it is (spying on the children). We think it is a way of ensuring that the system works a lot better…”  They also say “…The system is actually very secure. There’s no information on the (ID) cards that the pupils will be given themselves. It’s all held on a database and it’s obviously governed by data protection.”

Well that’s OK then given the UK Government’s record on securing our personal data in Government databases.  As safe as houses!

This site aims to bring you the latest stories where our civil liberties and personal privacy are under attack.

Click on one of the Subscribe icons to be regularly updated with new stories.

Scroll down for older stories or use the links on the left side of the site to find other stories or related sites.