Most people are aware that internet activity is monitored, either by organisations, employers, businesses, marketers and the government – but oddly, a new study by Ofcom shows that as a nation we are less concerned about security on the internet than ever before.
A huge eighty per cent are no longer worried about online security and fraud, with only a mere eight per cent being kept up at night by fears for their online privacy. If those eighty per cent aren’t worried about security and fraud then maybe they’ll be worried about this.
The Government is proposing a new legislation that plans to launch a digital surveillance that would allow for real-time monitoring of all phone calls and emails in Britain. The situation currently, is that although all web and email activity is monitored, the government must obtain a warrant to access any information from businesses or personal accounts. However, with real-time access to personal information and accounts, how will this work in terms of access? Will the government simply be able to access the information they want, whenever they want, without any prior warrant or warning?
Initially this thought makes for uncomfortable reading and it would seem a clear breach of privacy – but in a digital era, where everything we do is monitored and discussed in a social setting, can we object and say our activity shouldn’t be monitored?
More pressingly, if this legislation is to come into effect, what does this mean for businesses?
How can we keep our customer information secure and away from hackers? Firstly, we need assurances that the government will put safeguards in place to protect highly confidential information (bank details, accountancy information and highly confidential discussions will still need to fall under old legislation).
This type of legislation has been rejected before, coincidentally by the same government that is now proposing it.
As businesses we have the right to privacy and to assure our customers that they too have the right to privacy if they use our services. What if these monitoring practices come into place? How do we promise our customers that we are offering a secure service? How do we reassure them that they can trust in our service and that the information they disclose will not be taken or used against them?
Perhaps we are now entering a new era, and if this legislation is passed, we can no longer make guarantees that security and confidentiality can be kept?
Paul Lees, our company co-founder says, “Giving the Government this level of power to access this information, in theory I understand. However it seems to me that this power is redundant to a certain extent as those that they are trying to seek out, actually are the ones that will simply hide when this legislation comes into place. Therefore, the government will simply be monitoring the Average Jo with nothing more interesting than searching for the latest weather report. Surely money could be better spent on other security measures?”
If the government is all about supporting SMEs, how can it be invested in something that will surely create an increase in costs for communication providers? And if they decide to store any of this information it may help the government investigate serious crime and terrorism, but how can it prove to businesses that the storage is secure against hackers? Those very hackers that are currently getting very excited at the prospect of 65 million people’s data?
So many questions left unanswered it’s worrying. Do you agree that all this sounds rather big brother?
We’d be really interested to hear what our customers and readers think so please comment below.
