Gordon Brown
Brown: under fire. Again.

Controversy in Parliament over cyber security strategy

Minister ordered to House of Commons to respond to Tory questions

Written by Parliamentary reporter

The government’s new cyber security strategy has caused controversy in Parliament within hours of its launch earlier today.

New Speaker John Bercow had to order the government to send Home Office minister David Hanson to the House of Commons to answer an emergency question put down by the Conservatives.

The opposition is angry that details of such an important plan were leaked before its announcement to MPs.

Tory shadow home affairs minister Crispin Blunt said allowing the announcement to be leaked outside Parliament was "not only disgraceful, more alarmingly it is shambolic when the ministers directing this strategy who are supposed to keep us safe cannot even manage the orderly public release of new policy."

Liberal Democrat spokesman Tom Brake said the proposals could impact civil liberties, and demanded an assurance the new Cyber Security Operations Centre would not snoop on ordinary citizens' use of the internet.

"MPs will be concerned that there was a leak about of all things cyber security strategy," he said.

In response, Hanson said prime minister Gordon Brown had made a written statement spelling out the detailed proposals and "acted entirely properly".

He denied there had been briefings to the press in advance of the announcement and claimed the proposals would defend citizens from cyber crime and threats to security.

The minister said the mistaken issuing of a D-Notice concerning security without imposing an embargo had allowed some information to leak. A D-Notice is an official request to editors not to publish certain information on the grounds of national security.

  • Have your say
  • Send to a friend
  • Print this
  • Share

reader comments

related articles

padlockSecurity

Government launches UK’s first cyber security strategy

New plan will aim to increase risk monitoring and information sharing capabilities 25 Jun 2009

 

How government plans for Digital Britain affect UK IT

Computing examines the winners and losers in the government’s plan for the future role of technology throughout the UK, and asks IT experts for their opinion on the report and its recommendations 25 Jun 2009

Government to appoint national cyber security chief

Reports name senior civil servant in new post to oversee UK defence against cyber attacks 24 Jun 2009

Internet snooping laws are "overly intrusive"

London School of Economics report says new laws will treat every electronic communication as suspicious 17 Jun 2009

UK set for national cyber-security centre

Prime minister expected to announce new plan to combat e-crime attacks on UK IT infrastructure by foreign states and criminal gangs 15 Jun 2009

EU wants new cyber crime legislation

Commission wants Europe-wide reporting and alert system 15 Jun 2009

Tory leader Cameron puts IT at heart of political reform

E-petitions and use of social media backed in drive to open up Parliament to the people 28 May 2009

More controversy over DNA database as MP's details removed

Tory Damian Green has his record deleted - and wants samples of other innocents removed as well 20 Aug 2009

Government wants to prevent MPs voting on DNA database

Legislation to keep innocents on database for 12 years will not be debated on floor of the House of Commons 26 May 2009

related whitepapers

today's top stories

Police hunt for moles with security software

Lancashire Constabulary to monitor data input of 7,000 staff in bid to prevent intelligence leaks 09 Feb 2010

PaperlinX outsources IT and comms to Bull and BT

Paper company spends €22m on five-year deal for desktop management, helpdesk and datacentre services 05 Feb 2010

Social tools take KM to a new level

Technology expert David Tebbutt explains how – and why – organisations should integrate social networking tools into their knowledge management strategy 02 Feb 2010

EDS court defeat puts vendors on their guard

BSkyB’s victory in a long-running court case against EDS has serious implications for the IT industry 02 Feb 2010

Law firm monitors web traffic violations

Bucks declining global security appliance sales with unified threat management (UTM) platform deployment 01 Feb 2010

Advertisement

Security: The New Face of Intrusion Prevention
An outline of traditional IPS functionality, modern developments and how IPS can be deployed easily.

UK businesses’ attitudes to Cloud Computing revealed

Features results from a survey of over 200 Computing readers.

Advertisement

Keep up to date with the latest products, services and technologies from the world's leading IT companies; ITHound.com brings you over 6,000 white papers, case studies and analyst reports.

Advertisement

Newsletter signup

Sign up for our range of FREE newsletters:

More available - click 'submit' to view

Existing User

Newsletter user login:

Jobs

Related jobs

Job of the week

Job alerts

Sign up here

Find your next job

IT Salary Checker

Check salary here

Advertisement

Latest poll

Internet Explorer 6

Internet Explorer 6

Following recent concerns about the security of Internet Explorer 6 are you planning to phase it out?

View poll results

Latest audio and video articles

Tony McAlisterVideo

Video Q&A: Tony McAlister, CTO, Betfair - Part one

On changing the skills development strategy at the online gambling firm - part one of a two-part video interview 05 Nov 2009

Video

Nokia shows upcoming handset technologies

Mobile phone features of tomorrow take the stage 21 Oct 2009

Latest in-depth articles

Analysis

Police hunt for moles with security software

Lancashire Constabulary to monitor data input of 7,000 staff in bid to prevent intelligence leaks 09 Feb 2010

Businessman with eye patch, dagger and tie round head, sitting at laptopFeatures

Are you sure you're not a pirate?

It is alarmingly easy for an IT leader to unwittingly exceed the scope of a software licence, and the chances of being caught out have never been greater, as technology lawyers Mark Weston and Paul Gershlick explain 09 Feb 2010

Primary Navigation