Ministers 'plan to spend £12bn' to track all e-mails and phone calls

Published on Sunday 5 October 2008 01:29

UK MINISTERS are planning to spend up to £12bn on a system that would track, tag and store the internet history, e-mail records and telephone calls of every person in Britain, it was claimed last night.

The proposal, which officials claim is vital to fight terrorism and organised crime, would entail installing hundreds of hidden devices to tap into communications on the internet and via mobile phone providers. A national database would be created to store the information.

A first instalment of 1bn has already been allocated to the Government's central intelligence agency GCHQ to finance the first stage of the controversial project, which will involve testing the process on two of the country's largest communications providers, rumoured to be BT and Vodafone.

While officials claim comprehensive monitoring of all private communication is vital to protect the public from terrorists and fight organised crime networks, it is likely that any attempt to implement widespread live monitoring would attract fierce opposition from human rights and liberty groups.

Dominic Grieve, the shadow home secretary, said: "Any suggestion of the Government using existing powers to intercept communications data without public discussion is going to sound extremely sinister."

There have also been fears voiced concerning security issues about maintaining such a large database.

MI5 currently conducts limited e-mail and website surveillance, but still requires permission from the Home Secretary on a case-by-case basis to carry out the checks. If the new proposals are implemented, the intercepts would be comprehensive and automatic.

The Home Office said no formal decision had been taken and said it "did not recognise" the 12bn price tag being put on the system in some quarters. But sources said officials had made clear that ministers had agreed "in principle" to the programme.

Further details of the new plan will be unveiled next month in the Queen's Speech.

Last year it was estimated that 57 billion text messages were sent in the UK alone, up from a mere one billion in 1999.

Meanwhile, the number of broadband internet connections has grown from just 330,000 in 2001 to 18 million in 2007.

And each day three billion e-mails are sent – 35,000 every second. Security experts, ministers and police know that among all this electronic noise, terrorists posing a serious risk to national security are hiding and sharing information on where to strike next.

The problem for the security services is that the data is almost impossible to track unless they have clear information about where to look.