A U.K. government plan to ramp up communications traffic data...

access data from new technologies, Home Secretary Theresa May said in a foreword. “Without action there is a serious and growing risk that crime enabled by email and the internet will go undetected and unpunished.” The measure doesn’t require retention of message content, the draft said. Communications services providers are currently required to store some communications data which they have business reasons to generate or process, it said. They don’t have to keep data they don’t need, it said. The police and other public authorities can access specified communications data on a case-by-case basis, and they must first show that the information is necessary to their investigation and proportionate to its objectives, it said. Law enforcement bodies can’t access data that’s not connected to a specific operation, it said. As communications technologies and services change, and more take place online via a wider range of service, including VoIP, online gaming and instant messaging, ISPs and other providers must be required to obtain and store some traffic data they have no reason to collect, it said. The draft calls for “filtering” that data when authorized in response to a lawful data request from a public authority, although it also says that only those parts of the netted data covered by the authorization can be handed over. May said she recognizes “that these proposals raise important issues around personal privacy,” so the bill will undergo pre-legislative scrutiny by a joint parliamentary committee. The Internet Services Providers’ Association “has concerns about the new powers to require network operators to capture and retain third party communications data,” said ISPA Secretary General Nicholas Lansman. Those concerns include scope and proportionality, privacy and data protection implications and technical feasibility, he said. ISPs understand that the technological developments are forcing the government to revisit its communications data capabilities, but its powers must be clear and contain sufficient safeguards, he said. ISPA will try to address its key concerns during the parliamentary review, he said. The measure is almost identical to a 2009 proposal from the Labour Party which was strongly opposed by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, Privacy International Press Officer Emma Draper told us. The public outcry in April when the story of the plan first broke “has clearly not discouraged the Home Office,” which has “thrown us the bone of restricting access for local authorities and confirmed our worst fears in every other respect,” she said after a briefing with Open Rights Group and Big Brother Watch. One member of Parliament at the briefing said he didn’t think the measure in its current form could even be put before the House of Commons, she said. There’s a distinct possibility that the government has “deliberately designed a completely outrageous draft bill” to allow it to make token concessions later, while keeping every provision it really cares about, Draper said.