Llanelli 38 Degree Members hand internet privacy petition in to Llanelli MP Nia Griffiths

Over one hundred and fifty thousand people have signed an internet petition organised by the campaigning group 38 Degrees.

It asks the government to respect privacy online and not to require internet providers to keep records of our web activities including details of emails sent to colleagues, friends and family such as the time, date and location of the person when sending the email.

Local members of 38 Degrees met with Nia Griffiths MP to hand in a copy of the petition which included 89 signatories from the Llanelli area. The event was staged as one of 47 similar events across the country designed to show MP’s how strongly the public feels about the issue of online privacy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nia Griffiths was delighted to receive the petition and is broadly sympathetic to the 38 degrees campaign for internet privacy.

She spoke at length to the delegation on a wide variety of related points and was critical of the Liberal Democrats in the coalition government who have seemingly abandoned their libertarian ways in favour of the proposed ‘snooping powers’ requested by the Home Office.

However use of the new powers if brought in could be legally challenged as a clear breech of our rights under the Human Rights act (article 8) which clearly states that everyone has the right for ‘his private and family life, his home and correspondence.’

Excert – Article 8: Right to privacy

Human Rights Act 1998

(1) Everyone has the right for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.

(2) There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others

38 Degrees

The campaigning group 38 Degrees have concerns that this would be a massive invasion of our privacy that would allow the government to access huge amounts of information about who we’ve contacted and when, without getting a proper warrant all in the name of increased security despite the fact that serious criminals and terrorists can easily find a way around the measure by using pay-as-you-go phones, internet cafes, online games and anonymous internet (proxy) servers making it useless as tool to catch paedophiles and terrorists whilst criminalising the mainstream majority of ordinary people that use the internet for work, keeping in touch with friends and family or entertainment.

There is also a concern that the sheer volume of information recorded would make it harder for security services to find criminals. One Llanelli activist said that ‘using the internet to find a criminal is like looking for a needle in a hay-stack, what these measures will ultimately do is to expand the number of hay-stacks’. 

Also the cost of the monitoring would have to be supported by the tax payer to the tune of 1.8 billion pounds over a ten year period, making this policy highly questionable at a time of cut backs in government spending.

Under existing legislation internet providers and communications companies must keep phone records and information about messages sent through their own email systems for 12 months. Police offers can access this data without having to go to court under the RIPA (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000).

The home office feels that this access is still too limited as the police can only access information about the communication rather than the content, so in other words a warrant issued by a Judge is required if the investigating officers need to know anything more than the when the message was sent, to who and at what time and so on.

The new powers if allowed to become law would drop the requirement of a judicial warrant for details of social networking sites visited, webmail communications, voice calls over the internet, and gaming.

In addition to details of websites visited, although the Home Office is keen to stress that pages within sites would not be recorded and that local councils will be stripped of their ability to access data relating to phone calls under the RIPA 2000 act and will be barred from using the new powers, though will be able to apply to use them at a later date.

Sources and follow up:

http://blog.38degrees.org.uk/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18434232

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Powers_Act_2000#Agencies_with_investigative_powers

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/946400.stm

http://www.itv.com/news/story/2012-06-14/government-to-curb-council-snooping-powers/