Big brother takes a step nearer

Surveillance and a consequent loss of privacy has gained another impetus recently. The Times reported recently that the Home Office has adopted a policy to allow police to hack into peoples' computers on a regular basis without obtaining a warrant or other permission.

In doing this they are adopting policy originating from the EU, so it has gone quietly through two administrations without debate and with announcement. The EU has used and amplified a little used possibility of surveillance of private property.

The result will be that member police forces of the EU will be able to ask British police to hack into a computer and receive any material gained. The hacking will we done remotely, of course, and most of us will be unaware that anything has happened, and the computer suffering intrusion could be at home, at work or in an hotel. The material could be e-mails, files, web browsing history and instant messaging. How long the copied material will be kept is not known.

The authorisation required is a senior officer who judges that the intrusion is necessary to prevent or detect serious crime, that is offences attracting a jail sentence of more than 3 years.

In theory at least the police could go on fishing operations, so long as the senior officer believes that something worthwhile could be found.

The Home Office would defend itself by pointing out that the provision is one from Brussels, and that we would have to comply with requests from other police forces in any case. Given their willingness to intrude into private affairs already, does anyone doubt that police and security services would employ this off their own bat as well?

The EU and our own government, those bastions of democracy and individual rights, have given another glimpse of what value they attach to privacy and the individual.

I hope that friends and colleagues will fight back by sending each other messages in gobbledy-gook, and giving the police plenty of opportunity to unravel random and jumbled sequences that have no meaning. Or would we be found guilty of wasting police time?