UK spy agencies want to install 'black box' surveillance devices across the country's communications networks to monitor internet use, it emerged today. A report by an influential committee of MPs tells how spooks are keen to implement a nationwide surveillance regime aimed at logging nearly everything Britons do and say online.
The spy network will rely on a technology known as Deep Packet Inspection to log data from communications ranging from online services like Facebook and Twitter, Skype calls with family members and visits to pornographic websites. But civil liberties and privacy campaigners have reacted with outrage, saying that the technology will give the government a greater surveillance capability than has ever been seen.
MI5 chief Jonathan Evans told the committee: 'Access to communications data of one sort or another is very important indeed. It’s part of the backbone of the way in which we would approach investigations. 'I think I would be accurate in saying there are no significant investigations that we undertake across the service that don’t use communications data because of its ability to tell you the who and the when and the where of your target’s activities.'
Emma Carr, deputy director of privacy and civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch, said: 'Using highly intrusive technology to monitor how people use the internet is not something that a civil society should be using on every citizen.
The spy network will rely on a technology known as Deep Packet Inspection to log data from communications ranging from online services like Facebook and Twitter, Skype calls with family members and visits to pornographic websites. But civil liberties and privacy campaigners have reacted with outrage, saying that the technology will give the government a greater surveillance capability than has ever been seen.
MI5 chief Jonathan Evans told the committee: 'Access to communications data of one sort or another is very important indeed. It’s part of the backbone of the way in which we would approach investigations. 'I think I would be accurate in saying there are no significant investigations that we undertake across the service that don’t use communications data because of its ability to tell you the who and the when and the where of your target’s activities.'
Emma Carr, deputy director of privacy and civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch, said: 'Using highly intrusive technology to monitor how people use the internet is not something that a civil society should be using on every citizen.
