Lawful Interception Of The Intercept Modernisation Programme
The IMP(Intercept Modernisation Programme) sounds quite harmless, in fact it's very difficult to learn what is actually about without reading up on it. Is it some sort of lawful interception of something - criminals, immigrants, terrorists, well not quite it's about data - your data.
If you're not in the United Kingdom you can relax for the moment, this is a UK programme although expect it to be mirrored in Europe and across the world very soon. It has spawned from a European Directive - the EU Data Retention Directive. Another harmless sounding peiece of legal speak, this directive requires that ISPs (Internet Service Providers) store all their customers communication details for a period of up to two years.
What are those commmunication details you may well ask ?
Well every web site you've visited, what you've typed in, emails you've sent, blogs posted, discussions etc - a long list of everything you've done online for the last two years must be logged and kept. The rather vague reason for this huge invasion of privacy is of course the usual one to catch criminals and terrorists. Sound's fair, happy with this - if not the implication is plain that you are bound to be up to no good! This is of course a lawful interception of your data mandated by the European Union.
Of course the most obvious question is "how is anyone going to handle that sort of data".
This is where the Intercept Modernisation Program comes in, a proposal to centralise all this information in one single electronic database which can be used by the appropriate authorities. That's right one huge electronic database with ALL your online information stored and searchable by whoever has the right piece of authorisation papers.
Just imagine you'll be able to produce handy lists of all sorts of things, medical conditions that Mr Jones has searched on, religious interests of Miss Owen, how many porn sites Mr Williams has visited in the last twenty four months. Just keep thinking, imagining, it will all be there on a single database for agencies to do their checks as they wish.
In my mind this is a horrible invasion of privacy and is bound to have serious repurcussions on freedom of speech. What is worse is the rather automatic way that we all are presumed to be up to no good, of course if we have nothing to hide then that'll be fine.
The United Kingdom and in fact Europe is becoming more and more like the Eastern European police states of the last century. All our liberties and privacy are being eroded away in the name of catching terrorists. I suspect the terrorists are rather pleased of this affect on ordinary citizens.
Check it out - the 'intercept modernisation programme', although beware you are all ready probably being watched.
Try the new free demo of Identity Cloaker on the link below.
Anonymous Surfing Demo
Take care and stay safe.
Jim
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