NTL 'snooping' case sets dangerous precedent

NTL lost a high court battle yesterday which may give police greater powers to intercept private email communications.

The cable company had been asked to co-operate with a police investigation into a major fraud by keeping all the email correspondence of one of its customers in Ipswich.

But NTL was unable to do so without also intercepting the mail of other customers. All ISPs routinely destroy the contents of all messages they handle, and it's impossible to disable that process for just one individual. Retaining the contents of all customers' emails would be illegal under the terms of the Data Protection Act.

Its only option was to intercept the individual's mail and reroute it to another address - but that could also have opened the company up to criminal proceedings as it is similarly outlawed by the Act.

It consequently took the case to the high court to ensure it wasn't breaking the law, only to be told by Lord Chief Justice Lord Woolf that the firm had 'lawful authority' to intercept and store emails without the consent of the customer.

Because the police's request for help was sanctioned by Ipswich Crown Court, he ruled that NTL could not be found guilty of any offence, according to the Metro newspaper.

But civil liberties groups are concerned that the case sets a dangerous precedent. A spokesman for Liberty told the paper: "It is getting progressively harder to safeguard the privacy of emails. If the police get a hint of anything they think is remotely suspicious, they will be able to get authority to examine the contents of private emails. There is a worrying tightening net on all sorts of private information. The system has few checks and balances."

But Lord Woolf said that such checks and balances do exist, as police have to justify their applications in court to obtain the interception orders, and that 'no harm' would be done to individuals as the contents of their emails could be disclosed only on a judge's orders.

NTL may appeal to the country's highest court, the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords.