RSSThe figures are out: 439,000 UK phone taps in a year!
February 20th, 2007 by 
Adam
A recent Slashdot article has highlighted new official figures released by the UK government, claiming that between 2005 and 2006, 439,000 telephones and email addresses were monitored by UK agencies. Furthermore, it seems that the Interception of Communications Commissioner is looking for new laws to be passed that allows them to monitor the communications of various Members of Parliament (the country’s political decision-makers). Monitoring MP’s communications was outlawed in the 1960s.
You can read the full article on Slashdot and make up your own mind. However, the gaining momentum of the anti-privacy movement is becoming alarming.
Posted in Privacy | 
February 28th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
It would be interesting if you could add to that post the total number of telephones in UK (the total number of e-mails is probably too high). While 439,000 is an extremely high number, it would be interesting to know what percentage this represents… fun with statistics.
February 28th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
I don’t really know how possible it would be to get a value of the number of phones in the UK… suffice to say that it’s lots! Despite the 439,000 phone taps being a tiny percentage of the number of phones out there, it’s an undeniably large number, and I would be surprised if people were generally aware that phone taps were as widely used.
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March 15th, 2007 at 7:39 am
The commissioner says that these 439,00 requests were mostly to gain phone numbers and email addresses, and not to intercept the contents. What do the authorities want with all this information, if not the contents? This sounds very suspicious. Are they trying to develop a database of dissenters or something like that? I am worried to think that as an activist I am probably on their list somewhere, categorised under whatever threat they think I am. And the intention to bug MP’s goes beyond the pale. These people are the guardians of our liberties who should have complete freedom and privacy to challenge the government. Treating them like potential terrorists is an attempt by this government to chill their freedom of association and ability to effectively represent us against the power of the state. BTW, google: Blair MI5 Shayler and you’ll get a good reason to be worried about this government.
July 18th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
The undisclosed numbers are more than the disclosed ones I figure.