Interception plans press ahead

Despite it being widely believed that the government's plans to expand their interception regulations so that ISPs would need to capture usage information of social networks and instant messaging (on top of what they are already required to do for e-mail) was going on hold until after the next election, it's been confirmed that the government are pushing ahead with the plans and have merged two teams working on interception activities.

The teams merged were working on traditional interception such as phone tapping and the programme respectively, and have been merged into a new department called the Communications Capabilities Directorate (CCD).

A government spokesman said:

"The Directorate will continue to consider the challenges posed by new technologies, working closely with communications service providers and others to bring forward proposals that command public confidence and demonstrate an appropriate balance between privacy and security."

It's not clear when the new scheme - which the government has touted as being necessary to fight terrorism - is set to come in.