Britain presses on with Big Brother telecoms database  

The Brisbane Times has an article on the latest expansion to the British surveillance state - Britain presses on with Big Brother telecoms database.

Every phone call, text message, email and website visit made by Britons is to be stored for a year and will be available for monitoring by government bodies.

All telecoms companies and internet service providers will be required by British law to keep a record of every customer's personal communications, showing who they have contacted, when and where, as well as the websites they have visited.

Despite public opposition, 653 public bodies will have access to the data, including police, local councils, the ambulance service, fire authorities and even prison governors.

They will not require the permission of a judge or a magistrate to obtain the information, but simply the authorisation of a senior police officer or the equivalent of a deputy head of department at a local authority.

Ministers had originally wanted to store the information on a single government-run database, but chose not to because of privacy concerns. But the Government announced this week that it was pressing ahead with privately held ''Big Brother'' databases that opposition leaders said amounted to state spying on the public.

It is doing so despite its own research showing that it has little public support.