RIP threat to e-mail privacy

Civil liberties groups have slammed a loophole in the proposed Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Bill that will allow police to get e-mail addresses from ISPs without the traditional court order.

The loophole means ISPs or telcos could be forced to hand over data, with permission coming only from a high-ranking police officer. Network managers could be flooded with demands for details of e-mails between the company and people the police are investigating.

"If someone in your company visits sites or gets mail from people that the police think are dodgy, then that will be reason enough to serve you with a warrant," said Caspar Bowden, of the Foundation for Information Policy Research.

Currently police need a court order to access content, such as reading users' e-mail. But Bowden warned that communications data could be used to get warrants if users have been contacted by a source the police considers criminal.

He said that in the past police could request details of phone numbers or e-mail addresses that a user had contacted, and the party holding it had the choice of whether to give it to them. If the company refused, the police would then have to convince a judge to issue a court order.

The Data Protection Registrar confirmed that the loophole widened police powers. "One form of data could be used to inform the decision to intercept another, there's nothing in the new bill to suggest that it couldn't," said Phil Jones, assistant commissioner at the Data Protection Registrar.

The fear is that removing the need to convince a judge that a request is valid will result in inquiries going unchecked. Yaman Akdeniz, director of Cyber-Rights & Cyber Liberties, said:"Judges look at requests with more legal scrutiny. There is a threat that the new legislation will be systematically abused, and warrants will end up being issued without good reason."