Public plot to fill Home Secretary's inbox and stop ISP data-tracking scheme

The response to the Home secretary, Jacqui Smith's announcement to use UK internet service providers as a go-between for collecting the details of emails, VoIP calls, social-networking content and instant messages hasn't gone down too well so far.

After plans were announced to implement the data-tracking scheme at a cost of £2 billion pounds, social networking sites are filling up fast with news of a “cc all your emails you Jacqui Smith” Day – a planned demonstration set for the 15th June.

In an effort to recruit willing cc'ers, the dedicated site ( www.ccjacquismith.co.uk) put together the following mission statement calling on UK internet customers to forward all their email correspondence on that day to the Jacqui Smith's Home Office email address. The site explained its protest:

“The Government has unveiled places for a private company to run a “super database” that will track all our emails, calls, texts, internet use and so on. This is an immense infringement of civil liberties, not to mention a major risk to our private data – but it won't make us any safer. The sheer amount of information the Government intends to collect will be impossible to analyse properly and will undoubtedly turn up false positives while missing potential security threats amongst the morass of spam emails and private change.

“So, for one day, we should send a message to the Home Office - “you want to see our emails? OK then, here they are!” We do this by simply cc'ing or bcc'ing every email we send (and if you like, forwarding every email you receive, regardless of importance or content.”

The Home Office could be in for a troublesome day if the response to this request is anything to go by. In just a couple of days, member figures for the “cc all your emails to Jacqui Smith” day group on Facebook alone neared almost 6,000.

It is indeed a strange turn up for the books for the Home Secretary. Merely a couple of weeks ago it was revealed the UK Government could be penalised by the European Commission for their lack of action against the controversial Phorm trials conducted in conjunction with BT.

Following news on the impending fine, EU telecoms commissioner Viviane Reding urged the UK Government to change laws to protect broadband users:

“I call on the UK authorities to change their national laws and ensure that national authorities are duly empowered and have proper sanctions at their disposal to enforce EU legislation on the confidentially of communications,” said Reding. “This should allow the UK to respond more vigorously to new challenges to ePrivacy and personal data protection such as those that have arisen in the Phorm case.”

Obviously, the UK telecoms commissioner didn't know what was in store from the Home Secretary.

For those wanting to have their say without clogging up the Home Office's email, the Government are inviting opinions to be passed over (after reading the consultation in full, of course) at www.homeoffice.gov.uk .