Freedom fighters sound alert over ISP data powers

Civil liberties lobbyists have been angered by private negotiations between the police and ISPs (Internet service providers) over the use of emails as criminal evidence.

A document leaked last week to the Cyber-Rights and Cyber-Liberties (C&C) organisation described all the personal information that ISPs could potentially hand over to the police. C&C director, Yaman Akdeniz, claimed the document was prepared in private by the UK's ISP Association (ISPA), and passed on to the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO).

The document shows that ISPs have the power to collect personal information such as names and addresses, as well as the content of emails.

Akdeniz told Silicon.com: "To some people, this might seem obvious, but we want to alert the general public to what ISPs are capable of doing."

C&C wants discussions between ACPO and ISPA, currently held behind closed doors, to be open to the public. "Once standards are set, it will be too late to debate the issue," said Akdeniz.

But it is unlikely that ISPs will be able to take advantage of their powers, even if they wanted to. When ISPA began negotiating with ACPO in September, police representatives made it clear that email evidence could not prove association between two people.

It is likely that ISPs will have to follow Section 28 of the Data Protection Act, which currently applies to telcos. This would make the timing of an email available to authorities, just like a telephone call. Its content, however, would remain private.