Under and extension of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act of 2000, all calls made in the UK are to be logged for one year.
The Home Office, of course, has stated that the content of the calls will not be logged, however, the information will be available to 652 different agencies, including the Food Standards Agency and the Gaming Board.
The information will be dissected into three different levels. The first consists of obtaining subscriber information from a phone number to find an individual. The second level will add all the calls made by that subscriber and the third level will add incoming calls and location information of said calls.
Civil rights groups believe that the government has overstepped its bounds in obtaining this new information.
“Once again this government has been caught red handed creating new surveillance state powers with no meaningful public or parliamentary debate,” said Nick Clegg, home affairs spokesman for the Liberal Democrats.
The Home Office, however, states that they are only doing what is necessary to be compliant with an EU directive.
”We are not intruding into people’s private lives,” he said. “Imposing requirements on phone service providers to retain data is part of the difficult balance between protecting people from terrorism and serious crime, and respecting human rights.”
Only time will tell how much this new directive will be abused.
