Government scraps plans for communication database

Published on Monday 27 April 2009 22:52

HOME Secretary Jacqui Smith yesterday ditched plans for a giant government database tracking all e-mails, phone calls and internet activity.

Ms Smith said a central store of electronic data was an "extreme" solution and would have undermined privacy.

Records of every electronic communication made by Britons will instead be held by private companies at a cost of about 2 billion.

Internet firms will be asked to collect and store vast amounts of data, including from social networking sites such as Facebook.

Launching the proposals, Ms Smith acknowledged concerns over privacy.

She said: "My key priority is to protect the citizens of the UK, and communications data is an essential tool for law enforcement agencies to track paedophiles and tackle crime.

"Advances in communications mean that there are more ways to communicate and we need to keep up with the technology being used.

"It is essential that crime-fighting agencies have the tools they need to do their job. However, to be clear, there are no plans for a single central store."