Three Quarters of UK People Oppose New Internet Snooping Laws

June 25, 2012 - PRLog -- A new web-based survey of 1107 internet users and ISPreview.co.uk readers in the United Kingdom (*) has revealed that 73% are opposed to government plans that would expand existing internet snooping laws (**) to log a much bigger slice of their online activity (e.g. Skype, website URLs and Facebook access etc.); regardless of whether or not you ever committed a crime.

The current Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) and EU Data Retention Directive already requires ISPs to maintain a log of their customers internet website and email accesses (times, dates and IP addresses) for 12 months (this does not include the content of your communication), which is only accessible via an interception warrant.

Respondents to the survey were also asked about their "biggest concern", which revealed that the majority (63.5%) were most worried about abuse of their privacy. Meanwhile 17% felt that the criminals / terrorists would be able to avoid the logging, such as by using an encrypted VPN (usually used for remote working), and only 2.9% had no concerns at all.

What is your biggest concern about such logs?
Abuse of my privacy - 63.5%
Criminals can avoid it - 17.3%
Security of the database - 12.5%
Too costly (GBP1.8bn) - 3.6%
I have no concerns - 2.9%

"The UK government's £1.8bn scheme to expand its controversial internet snooping law does have some merit," said ISPreview.co.uk's Founder, Mark Jackson. "Internet crime remains a huge problem, as is terrorism, although clearly this needs to be balanced against the legitimate concern of innocent internet users."

"Internet providers could also face huge costs to introduce the system, which risks pushing up the price of broadband for everybody. Meanwhile the true criminals already have the tools to circumnavigate these rules (VPN, Proxy Servers etc.) and will continue to go undetected. The huge new ISP-managed databases also risk becoming a tempting targets for hackers." added Jackson.


*  Online survey conducted between 21st May 2012 and 22nd June 2012 with 1107 UK internet users of the ISPreview.co.uk website.

** http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2012/06/uk-governmen...