Some news sites are reporting the fact that the UK government has backed down on the central storage of all emails, web-browsing and telephone calls.

Whilst I think this is great news, I’m also not naiive enough to ignore the fact that the supposed back-down is actually a slight shift in emphasis about who is going to store the actual data. The government still wants to know what emails you’ve been sending where, but it wants your ISP to store the data, not the government. Considering the UK government’s appalling record of ‘losing’ confidential data over the last year or so, that’s probably a good thing.

According to the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, authorities will only be interested in the, “who, when, where and how” of the traffic data as opposed to the content. I remain sceptical about this statement. That might be the case now but I’m sure that once this legislation is passed and in force, content will be next target the Government’s move towards a Orwellian lack of data privacy.

Nothing to hide?

Whilst the majority of us think that it doesn’t matter because we have nothing to hide, we may be living with our heads in the sand. It was not that long back that the labour government were exposed for using Google Earth imaging to find new and interesting ways to increase council taxes. I wonder how disparate government authorities will abuse this increased insight into our personal lives?