| I would urge everyone who can to sign the petition against it. This, in my mind is a problem, not because of the obvious costs (ISPs storing _literally all_ metadata for a year), and the insidous privacy concerns, but how bad Govts are at keeping information secure. Below are 3 recent and well known examples of Government Mass Data leaks- this information will be compromised at some point, for profit or espionage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7449927.stm https://www.troyhunt.com/when-nation-is-hacked-understanding... IMHO, trotting out "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear" BS doesn't mean that at some point, that data will be misused, even if the UK (My) Government doesn't suddenly turn dictatorial. |
What concerns me is the sheer number of groups that are being given access from the start, not because of who is on it, but because somebody has compiled that list in the first place. It suggests that there is already a longer term plan in place for the use of this data, and these are the entities who will need access to achieve that end. Otherwise, surely the approach would be a lot more cautious - "We'll limit it to GCHQ and the Secretary of State for now, and all requestss can go through the SoS. That will give us an idea of who actually needs this data on a case by case basis, and we can tweak the legislation as necessary based on that."
Then you look a little closer at some of the entries. Why would the Fire Service need access? Nothing in their job involves anything to do with individuals, at least not to the degree that they have any requirement for access to any data about them. Well, it doesn't say Fire Service. It says "Fire and Rescue Authorities under the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004". Take a look at that act. Unless you're in Greater London, your fire and rescue authority is your local council. Why did they feel the need to slip your council in through the back door like that? Granted, access is limited to "Watch Manager (Control)", which sort of sounds like a Fire Service position, but it's vague enough that you could legitimately assign that job title to a Traffic Warden's supervisor without anybody batting an eye.
Why do the Food Standards Agency need access? Access for them is restricted to Grade 6, which doesn't seem to have any job title definitions, only a pay range - as of August 2015 it was £54,000 to £69,500. So any person who commands that salary, regardless of whether they need it for that job, will have this access? That doesn't seem a particularly clever way to manage data access.