The Guardian is running a front page story saying that David Blunkett will soon announce that he has dramatically cut the list of new organisations that are to gain access to RIPE data.
David Blunkett, the home secretary, has bowed to intense public concern over the privacy of electronic communications and radically redrawn plans to give a host of state agencies and local authorities the power to access telephone, internet and email records.
A consultation paper to be released by the Home Office within the next fortnight - the details of which have been leaked to the Guardian - will limit the number of agencies to be handed automatic access to private communications data, alongside a series of new concessions designed to defuse fears that the government was attempting to undermine the right to privacy.
Blunkett u-turn on data privacy plans
Total UK Information Awareness
inkdroid on 2003-02-26T14:20:52
It's interesting the UK and the US are both trampling on privacy rights in their
Sisyphean effort to make the world safe from terrorists. In the US we have the
Information Awareness Office which is attempting to integrate data from commercial and government sources into a huge database for tracking people's behavior. Why can't DARPA continue to do interesting things like building the Internet? While the logistics of building such a database are fascinating to me, and I can definitely see that the information could be useful, I really think the potential for harm far outweighs the good it could do. We already know we've got corrupt FBI and CIA agents with
problems of their own...what would they do with this information? Kudos to the UK for reigning in the access to this information...here in the US things seem to be getting
worse.
