UK.gov plans net surveillance by 2015

From The Register

Government measures to massively increase surveillance of the internet will be in place within five years.


In its departmental business plan, published today, the Home Office said it aims that "key proposals [will be] implemented for the storage and acquisition of internet and e-mail records" by June 2015.

The plan is the latest incarnation of the Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP), a much-delayed initiative, backed by the intelligence agencies, to capture details of who contacts whom, when and where*, online.

The Labour government shelved IMP before the election, but it has been revived by the coalition, despite a promise to "end the storage of internet and email records without good reason".

Confusingly, today's Home Office document says it will "end the storage of internet and email records without good reason" via "proposals for the storage and acquisition of internet and email records".

It also pledges to introduce legislation "if necessary". While in opposition the security minister, Baroness Neville-Jones, sharply criticised any move to gather more communications data without primary legislation.