The U.K. government's electronic eavesdropping agency has denied developing technology that will enable the mass surveillance of U.K. citizens' Web communications.
In a press statement on Monday, GCHQ said it would not monitor Internet use or phone calls for every U.K. citizen. The GCHQ announcement came after an article, co-authored by The Sunday Times and The Register and published on Sunday, claimed the government was pushing ahead with mass surveillance plans, despite having announced on 27 April that it would not store intercepted data in a centralized database.
"GCHQ is not developing technology to enable the monitoring of all Internet use and phone calls in Britain, or to target everyone in the United Kingdom," said Monday's statement. "Similarly, GCHQ has no ambitions, expectations or plans for a database or databases to store centrally all communications data in Britain."
The press statement said that GCHQ is in the process of developing technologies that are "designed to work under the existing legal framework", and that blanket interception would not be legal under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) or the European Convention on Human Rights.
However, Cambridge University security expert Richard Clayton told ZDNet Asia's sister site ZDNet UK on Tuesday that GCHQ had been "very precise" about what it would not intercept. Clayton said that 'black boxes' used for deep packet inspection had already been placed on content service provider (CSP) networks.
"They don't want to intercept content," said Clayton. "Lots of black boxes have been rolled out to CSPs, to pick up communications traffic data. They are not denying the black boxes, they are just denying intercepting content."
Clayton said that communications traffic data could be used to establish exactly who was communicating with whom, and when. He added that this data did not have to be processed or stored in a centralized database to be accessed and used by the intelligence services.
"The database is still a problem if it's a distributed database," said Clayton. "Provided there are automated enquiries--we're talking authorized online access--they can get data out of a distributed database just as quickly."
Clayton added that interception of traffic data would probably not contravene U.K. law.
"The offence under Ripa is picking out content, and making that content available to someone else," said Clayton. "They are going to know who you are communicating with, but that's not against the law."
Home secretary Jacqui Smith announced on April 27 that the government wants CSPs to record, retain and process details of all communications that take place over their networks. The Home Office also announced on the same day that 2 billion pounds (US$3 billion) would be made available to CSPs over 10 years to achieve this.
On Tuesday a U.K. Home Office spokesperson told ZDNet UK that the 2 billion pounds (US$3 billion) would not be provided out of the GCHQ budget, but instead would be a "cross-government project", should the program go ahead in its proposed form.
"The 2 billion pounds (US$3 billion) costs include the set-up and running costs over 10 years," said the spokesperson. "It's estimated the costs would be recovered by not running the current [interception] system."
The spokesperson added that the government's current interception capabilities were being "rapidly eroded" by the pace of technological change, and said that the tools were necessary for law-enforcement purposes.
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UK govt denies developing mass surveillance tech
This over-surveillance is also a threat to Business.
As I have said before, it is most likely that large International Companies, are becoming increasingly aware that all of their Business Transmissions through the UK are at risk, and important contracts may well be in jeopardy due to interception.
There is also the fact that UK's Big Brother may find he has an even Bigger Brother watching him. This surveillance and Data Collection Technology may already be being used by Counter Intelligence Services from other counties.
As already disclosed many times via the media, the Data the Government does have is very loosely guarded. Laptops left in public places, CD discs, DVD Discs, and Pen Drives left in public places.
To cap it all they still want to store more of our private and personal data.
British National Security is becoming a bad joke at our expense.
Signed Carl Barron Chairman of agpcuk
Posted by Carl Barron on Wednesday, November 11 2009 01:19 AM