Anti-terror fight 'will need privacy sacrifice'
By Rosamond Hutt, Press Association
Wednesday, 25 February 2009
Citizens will have to sacrifice their right to privacy in the fight
against terrorism, a former senior security official warned today.
Sir David Omand, the Cabinet Office's former security and intelligence
co-ordinator, said in future the security services would need access to
a wide range of personal data, including phone records, emails and
travel information.
In a research paper on national security strategy, Sir David wrote:
"Finding out other people's secrets is going to involve breaking
everyday moral rules."
The document for the Institute for Public Policy think tank outlines
plans to track terrorist groups through a state database which would
also contain the details of innocent people.
He wrote: "Modern intelligence access will often involve intrusive
methods of surveillance and investigation, accepting that, in some
respects this may have to be at the expense of some aspects of privacy
rights.
"This is a hard choice, and goes against current calls to curb the so-
called surveillance society - but it is greatly preferable to tinkering
with the rule of law, or derogating from fundamental human rights.
"Being able to demonstrate proper legal authorisation and appropriate
oversight of the use of such intrusive intelligence activity may become
a major future issue for the intelligence community, if the public at
large is to be convinced of the desirability of such intelligence
capability."
The "intrusive" surveillance techniques would involve mining databases
for information on airline bookings and other travel data, passport and
biometric data, immigration, identity and border records, criminal
records and other government and private sector data, including
financial and telephone and other communications records.
Sir David said such information may be held in national records, covered
by Data Protection legislation, but it might also be held offshore by
other nations or by global companies, and may or may not be subject to
international agreements.
"Access to such information, and in some cases to the ability to apply
data mining and pattern recognition software to databases, might well be
the key to effective pre-emption in future terrorist cases," he wrote.
Http://www.independ
need-privacy-
Wednesday, 25 February 2009
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