MEPs call for search engines to store web search histories for two years

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/n ... years.html


It will certainly not help stop paedophiles. It will infringe our rights to privacy well beyond what is necessary to protect society. I could appreciate it if very specific searches are kept such as child porn terrorism jihad etc. Why would they need access to someones search for milf porn or cheap flights?

That's just the same sort of reactionary, ill thought out b0llocks we normally get from our MPs

This is our MEP's. I thought that they were a beacon of sanity compared to our bunch but apparently not.

It can't happen here, currently. That would go against the constitution.

This is a type of ethical problem that has arisen before and been dealt with. When the first modern format standing armies and police and intelligence services were initially created, there was an issue with their predecessors (semi formal militias, secret policemen and so forth) who were associated with abuses of similar powers. The solution was to create more or less independent new agencies to hold new powers according to a specifically devised ethical code (Ministry of Defence / War Office, Foreign Office, Metropolitan Police) rather than to extend new powers to existing agencies.

The same pattern could, if there are relevant technical benefits, be repeated here. Rather than incorporating general civil surveillance into a police force tasked with prevention of all crimes, or an intelligence service charged with suppression of political crimes and in so doing creating a 1984 style threat; we could create a new civil surveillance authority that has a specific ethic of only looking for threats appropriate to their methods. i.e. one that would refuse on principle to look for benefit fraudsters and other petty criminals, but would employ its resources to look for serial killers, bomb manufacturers or other crimes that might involve traceable research and be serious enough to warrant otherwise unacceptable methods.

Of course, if the technology in question is not up to that job, then there is no valid purpose to it at all.

Yes but can you imagine any government not including benefit cheats in its remit?

Yet they go on about Google and privacy.

So google have to keep it for no more than 180 days for their purposes but two years for government purposes?

If such is incompatible with its ethics, then it's incompatible with its remit. The ethics are the purpose of any such organisation, without a specific ethical code, any organisation might as well be granted the powers. This is why doctors are allowed to place their hands on people in a manner that would get a PE teacher sent to prison.

web search storage

well thats just gonna be 74% porn, 15% boring meaningless [LIFTED] no one cares about and 1% dubious searches.

Have you been using my search stats as an example?

thats me screwed then, I watch a lot of terrorist videos

Well that might already put you on the Special Branch watch list already. The only terrorist type videos I might see are via Digg or Reddit and are on Youtube.