UK seizes millions of customer records from telcos and ISPs

The watchdog organisation compiled its figures based on estimates supplied by the Home Office, Ministerial statements, legal experts, the communications industry and the All Party Internet Group of MPs.

A conference yesterday at the London School of Economics heard Privacy International explain that requests from police and other investigative agencies involve an estimated 100 million individual phone calls, subscriber data on nearly a million consumers, and the acquisition of an unknown number of e-mail and internet logs.

This mass of seized information comprises perhaps a billion individual items of data, ranging from credit card numbers to dialled numbers.

Combined, this array of data creates a comprehensive dossier on the contacts, friendships, interests, transactions, movements and personal information on almost everyone in the UK, says the human rights group. A single customer file can involve thousands of items.

According to Privacy International, BT stores records for up to seven years and these are sent automatically on request to government agencies without the need for human intervention.

It adds that mobile phone providers - 02 in particular - are able to provide authorities with information on their customers' geographic movements (while using their phone) going back months and sometimes years.

This "communications data" can include all the calls you have made and that you received, who you are in contact with, the geographic location of your mobile calls, the e-mails you have sent and which you received, the web sites you have visited, the television programmes you have watched, personal financial data and other personal information. It does not, however, include the content of e-mails or phone conversations.

Privacy International's Director, Simon Davies, said the estimates were "very much on the low side" and did not include access to e-mail or internet activity, or investigations by security organisations such as GCHQ. "We literally halved the Home Office estimate before commencing the extrapolation, just to be on the safe side" he said.

This activity has occurred for years, which Privacy International claims has been done without legal authority and in defiance of the Data Protection Act.

However, the organisation does not mention the Interception of Communications Act 1985, which has long provided authority for such activity in conjunction with a provision of the Data Protection Act that gives exemptions for preventing or detecting crime. The Interception of Communications Act is due to be replaced by provisions of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) that have yet to come into force.

Last year, the Home Office attempted to authorise under RIPA an even more extensive list of public authorities to access this communications data, but following a public outcry was forced to temporarily withdraw the proposal.

This unprecedented access would have been available - as indeed it is currently without any judicial oversight. The Home Office is now consulting over these issues before taking further action, but its two consultation documents it has published indicate that the current surveillance regime is likely to become universal.

Privacy International believes that the privacy rights of customers should have been respected both by Government and by the companies.

"We see the current arrangement as a collusion of interests that will ultimately expose the most intimate details of people's lives" said Mr Davies.

Privacy International has also launched a campaign to help UK consumers retrieve the information that is held about them.

"We hope that in so doing, all of us will learn a great deal more about this covert activity. It is also likely that the exercise of our data protection rights will send a clear signal to communications providers and to government that people have a high regard for their right to privacy" added Mr Davies.