BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING...

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Health and safety inspectors are set to be allowed into family homes to check whether parents are doing enough to prevent children having accidents. Officials will be sent to carry out formal assessments on items such as stair gates, oven guards and smoke alarms, under draft guidelines drawn up for the Department of Health. Hospital records and social services papers would be trawled to find families to target for further investigation and GPs, midwives and health visitors would also be asked to make checks as a matter of “routine”.

Information on families’ home arrangements could then be stored on a new health and safety database available to councils, NHS bodies, housing associations, police and the fire brigade. The plans are contained in draft guidelines drawn up by a committee of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice). Council officials currently carry out checks on homes where extensive building work has taken place and extreme cases where there is thought to be a public health risk. But the new guidelines are specifically aimed at NHS trusts, environmental health bodies, social services, the police and the fire brigade.

The paper recommends that the authorities, “Use local information to identify and prioritise households where children and young people aged under 15 are at greatest risk of unintentional injury. Factors could include overcrowding, a low income and a lack of appropriately installed safety equipment. The data could come from surveys and needs assessments and existing data sets, such as hospital episode statistics. Or data could be gathered as part of routine practice, for example, during home visits by community practitioners.”

It also advises them to “consider establishing or using an existing database to share information on high-risk households with other statutory agencies”. Alex Deane, director of “Big Brother Watch”, a campaign group set up by the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said that the plans risked endangering trust between medical staff and patients. He said, “This crosses the important line between individuals asking the state for help and the state forcing ‘help’ on us. Every time there is an intrusion into our privacy, there is always an ostensible good intention and normally it is to do with the protection of children. That’s how they get in the door, it is getting them out again which individuals have got to be concerned about.” (Source: Daily Telegraph, Nov/09)

Internet "black boxes" will be used to collect every email and web visit in the UK under the Government's plans for a giant "big brother" database. Home Office officials have told senior figures from the internet and telecommunications industries that the "black box" technology could automatically retain and store raw data from the web before transferring it to a giant central database controlled by the Government. Plans to create a database holding information about every phone call, email and internet visit made in the UK have provoked a huge public outcry. Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, described it as "step too far" and the Government's own terrorism watchdog said that as a "raw idea" it was "awful".

Nevertheless, ministers have said they are committed to consulting on the new Communications Data Bill early in the new year. News that the Government is already preparing the ground by trying to allay the concerns of the internet industry is bound to raise suspicions about ministers' true intentions. Further details of the database emerged at a meeting of internet service providers (ISPs) in London where representatives from BT, AOL Europe, O2 and BSkyB were given a PowerPoint presentation of the issues and the technology surrounding the Government's Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP), the name given by the Home Office to the database proposal.

Whitehall experts working on the IMP unit told the meeting the security and intelligence agencies wanted to use the stored data to help fight serious crime and terrorism, and said the technology would allow them to create greater "capacity" to monitor all communication traffic on the internet. The "black boxes" are an attractive option for the internet industry because they would be secure and not require any direct input from the ISPs. During the meeting Whitehall officials also tried to reassure the industry by suggesting that many smaller ISPs would be unaffected by the "black boxes" as these would be installed upstream on the network and hinted that all costs would be met by the Government.

"It was clear the 'back box' is the technology the Government will use to hold all the data. But what isn't clear is what the Home Secretary, GCHQ and the security services intend to do with all this information in the future," said a source close to the meeting. He added, "They said they only wanted to return to a position they were in before the emergence of internet communication, when they were able to monitor all correspondence with a police suspect. The difference here is they will be in a much better position to spy on many more people on the basis of their internet behaviour. Also there's a grey area between what is content and what is traffic. Is what is said in a chat room content or just traffic?"

Ministers say plans for the database have not been confirmed, and that it is not their intention to introduce monitoring or storage equipment that will check or hold the content of emails or phonecalls on the traffic. A spokesman for the Home Office said that Monday's meeting provided a "chance to engage with small communication service providers" ahead of the formal public consultation next year. He added, "We need to work closely with the internet service providers and the communication service providers. The meeting was to show the top-line challenges faced in the future. We are public about the IMP, but we are still working out the detail. There will a consultation on the Communications Data Bill early next year." (Source: The Independent, Nov/08)

The Home Office has quietly adopted a new plan to allow police across Britain routinely to hack into people’s personal computers without a warrant. The hacking is known as “remote searching”. It allows police or MI5 officers who may be hundreds of miles away to examine covertly the hard drive of someone’s PC at his home, office or hotel room. Material gathered in this way includes the content of all e-mails, web-browsing habits and instant messaging.

Police across the EU have been given the green light to expand the implementation of a rarely used power involving warrantless intrusive surveillance of private property. The strategy will allow French, German and other EU forces to ask British officers to hack into someone’s UK computer and pass over any material found. A remote search can be granted if a senior officer says he “believes” that it is “proportionate” and necessary to prevent or detect serious crime, defined as any offence attracting a jail sentence of more than three years.

Richard Clayton, a researcher at Cambridge University’s computer laboratory, said that remote searches had been possible since 1994, although they were very rare. An amendment to the Computer Misuse Act 1990 made hacking legal if it was authorised and carried out by the state. He said the authorities could break into a suspect’s home or office and insert a “key-logging” device into an individual’s computer. This would collect and, if necessary, transmit details of all the suspect’s keystrokes.

Police might also send an e-mail to a suspect’s computer. The message would include an attachment that contained a virus or “malware”. If the attachment was opened, the remote search facility would be covertly activated. Alternatively, police could park outside a suspect’s home and hack into his or her hard drive using the wireless network. Police say that such methods are necessary to investigate suspects who use cyberspace to carry out crimes. These include paedophiles, internet fraudsters, identity thieves and terrorists. (Source: Times Online, Jan/09)