Facebook And Co ‘Face Big Brother Monitoring’ Posted on March 27th
1:54pm UK, Wednesday March 25, 2009
Millions of Britons who use social networking websites such as Facebook could have details of everyone they correspond with monitored by the Government.
Many people use sites like Facebook to contact friends
Under the proposals, the Home Office is considering making the sites keep data about their users’ movements.
These details may then be saved on a “Big Brother” database.
The Home Office said the idea was to tackle criminals and terrorists who might use the websites to communicate.
But it stressed the Government was not seeking the power to examine the content of messages sent via the sites.
Many people in Britain use social networking sites, like Facebook, MySpace and Bebo to keep in touch with their friends.
Civil liberties campaigners have called the proposals a “snooper’s charter”. Liberal Democrat MP Tom Brake has serious concerns.
He told Sky News: “The key issue is what data are they going to be retaining? Are they going to be looking at which groups people belong to on Facebook or MySpace or Bebo?
“Are they going to look at what expressed interests people have? If the answer is yes then we should have real major privacy concerns.”
He added: “We also need guarantees that organisations like local authorities will not be able to access this data for frivolous purposes.
“For instance someone is claiming they are living at a particular address to gain admission to a local school for their child… this is counter-terrorist legislation being used in the wrong way.”
Contacts could be monitored
The Government move follows plans to store information about every telephone call, email, and internet visit made by anyone in the UK on a central database.
Details were disclosed by Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker earlier this month at a Commons committee to examine draft EU directives.
He said the Government was considering acting on social networking sites because they were not covered by the latest proposals from Brussels.
“Social networking sites, such as MySpace or Bebo, are not covered by the directive,” he said.
“That is one reason why the Government are looking at what we should do about the intercept modernisation programme because there are certain aspects of communications which are not covered by the directive.”
He added the Government’s intercept modernisation programme proposals may be extended to include “the retention of data on Facebook, Bebo, MySpace and
all other similar sites”.
Mr Coaker acknowledged the plan would raise fresh concerns about the right to privacy.
“I accept that this is an extremely difficult area. The interface between retaining data, private security and all such issues of privacy is extremely important,” he said.
A Home Office spokesman stressed the Government was not seeking the power to examine the content of messages sent via the sites.
He said: “We have been clear that communications revolution has been rapid in this country and the way in which we collect communications data needs to change so that law enforcement agencies can maintain their ability to tackle terrorism and gather evidence.”