15 August 2008
Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have branded Home Office plans to give hundreds of public bodies access to people's texts, e-mails and internet use a 'snoopers' charter'.
The proposals, published in a Home Office consultation document on August 12, would allow telecommunications companies to give details of personal internet and text traffic, though not their content, to officials investigating crime, or 'to protect the public'.
A Home Office spokesman said: 'This data allows investigators to identify suspects, examine their contacts, establish relationships between conspirators and place them in a specific location at a certain time.'
But shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve said: 'Yet again, the government have proved themselves unable to resist the temptation to take a power… designed to combat terrorism to snoop on the lives of ordinary people.'
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said that ministers had proved they were not to be trusted with sensitive data.
PFaug2008
