ICO: Comms bill still 'highly intrusive'

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The Information Commissioner has welcomed the government’s plans to scrap a massive central database for communications records, but warned the data it wants access to is still “highly intrusive”.

Yesterday, the government laid out its plans for the Communications Bill, which would let policing agencies see data about mobile phone calls, text messages, email and even internet browsing session. The proposals would not let police see the content of messages, but would let them see when and to whom they were sent.

Information Commissioner Richard Thomas said in a statement: “We should remember that communication records – who? when? where? – can be highly intrusive even if no content is collected. You can tell an awful lot about some people’s personal circumstances from the people they are talking to and the websites they visit.”

The government did scrap plans to hold all the data in one place, however, saying internet service providers and mobile operators would have to offer easy access instead.

“It is welcome that the Government has stopped short of proposing the creation of a centralised database of these records, recognising the privacy concerns that such a step would raise, but there are still many matters of details that will require much closer examination,” Thomas said.

“It is important that the proposals are tightly defined and minimise the level of intrusion with appropriate safeguards in place,” he added.

Thomas said his office would be making a “formal response” to the consultation about the bill soon.

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