Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has indicated that there will be a further round of public consultation on controversial plans to extend public bodies’ access to communications logs.
The UK Home Office is already consulting on how to “transpose” a European Union directive on retaining data generated by public communications networks into UK law. This consultation closes at the end of the month.
But during a speech at the IPPR think-tank, Smith said there would be a further round of public consultation in the New Year. A Home Office spokesman later clarified that this would be on the Communications Data Bill, which includes a number of elements in addition to transposing EU Directive 2006/24/EC into UK law.
In her speech, Smith denied that the government was planning an “enormous database” holding “the content of your emails, the texts that you send or the chats you have on the phone or online.”
And she denied that local authorities would have the power “to trawl through such a database in the interest of investigating lower level criminality under the spurious cover of counter terrorist legislation.”
However, the current consultation on the EU directive indicates that logs of telephone calls and internet communications will be available to bodies licensed under the 2000 Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), including health authorities.
It says they would only be able to be accessed for investigations into crime or “other threats to public safety.” In health this could include checking for previous complaints relating to cruelty, abuse or self-harm.
Ms Smith told the IPPR that terrorism and major crime had changed, and the security and police services needed to change with them. “We have no option other than to respond if we are to remain constant and true in our defence of British liberties and British security.”
Related articles:
Health bodies could access communication logs
Links:
The government’s draft legislative programme and the Communications Data Bill