From 15th March 2009 all details of all emails sent or received in the UK will be stored….

This is being facilitated by the ISPs (Internet Service Providers) in the UK, who from 15th March will be legally bound to store this information. The ISPs are going to be considering well paid for setting up & providing this server. What is being stored is unclear at the moment but apparently the content of the email is not being kept. So looks like it will be the sender, the receiver, time, and other details being kept for 1 year before its discarded (apparently). But in case they are going to be storing email content I would suggest Pretty Good Privacy encryption (HOW TO coming soon) but you can just Google it as well.

The information being kept will then be available for over 600 public bodies when they make a valid request for it. What exactly is a valid request for information on your private emails? Will these be sold for advertising? Who knows!!

This whole scheme is because the UK has been told to do so by a European Commission directive. Brussels says violate your citizens privacy, so we have our privacy violated.

There have been quite a few a complaints against this new initiative including the Human Rights group “Liberty” & the Earl of Northesk who has a seat in the House of Lords on the Science & Technology Committee.

“Under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, privacy is a fundamental right… it is important to protect the principle of privacy because once you’ve lost it, it’s very difficult to recover.”

More details & the source of my information can be found on the BBC News site in the Technology section. The views expressed in this article are my own.

Tags: e-mail, encryption, EU, isp, pgp