The Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP) was a UK government initiative to extend the government's capabilities for lawful interception and storage of communications data. It was widely reported that the IMP's eventual goal was to store details of all UK communications data in a central database. The proposal was similar to the NSA Call Database ( MAINWAY) established by GCHQ's American counterpart NSA and the

Titan traffic database The Titan traffic database is a database allegedly in use by the Swedish signals intelligence agency, the National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA), according to a news report by '' Rapport'' on SVT in June 2008, based on an account from an a ...

established by the Swedish National Defence Radio Establishment. In 2008 plans were being made to collect data on all phone calls, emails, chatroom discussions and

web-browsing Web navigation refers to the process of navigating a network of information resources in the World Wide Web, which is organized as hypertext or hypermedia. The user interface that is used to do so is called a web browser. A central theme in web ...

habits as part of the IMP, thought likely to require the insertion of 'thousands' of black box probes into the country’s computer and telephone networks. The proposals were expected to be included in the Communications Data Bill 2008. The "giant database" would include telephone numbers dialled, the websites visited and addresses to which e-mails are sent "but not the content of e-mails or telephone conversations."

Chris Huhne Christopher Murray Paul-Huhne (born 2 July 1954), known as Chris Huhne, is a British energy and climate change consultant and former journalist and politician who was the Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for Eastleigh from 2005 to 2013 an ...

, the

Liberal Democrat Home affairs spokesman The Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesperson is the spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats on matters relating to the work of the Home Secretary and Home Office. The office holder is a member of the Liberal Democrat frontbench team. The post ...

said: "The government's Orwellian plans for a vast database of our private communications are deeply worrying." Despite this, the Home Office denied reports that a prototype of the IMP had already been built. Reports in April 2009 suggested that the government had changed its public stance to one of using legal measures to compel communications providers to store the data themselves, and making it available for government to access; then Home Secretary Jacqui Smith stated that "there are absolutely no plans for a single central store." The new plans were thought to involve spending £2bn on paying ISPs to install deep packet inspection equipment within their own networks, and obliging them to perform the cross-correlation and profiling of their users' behaviour themselves, in effect achieving the original goals of the IMP by different means. A detailed analysis was published by the Policy Engagement Network of the London School of Economics on 16 June 2009. The All Party Privacy Group held a hearing on IMP in the House of Commons on 1 July 2009. In 2010 the new coalition government apparently revived the IMP in its Strategic Defence and Security Review."Strategic Defence and Security Review"
(Press release). Department for International Development. The new version of the IMP was known as the

Communications Capabilities Development Programme The Communications Capabilities Development Programme (CCDP) is a UK government initiative to extend the government's capabilities for lawful interception and storage of communications data. It would involve the logging of every telephone call, ema ...

References

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External links

Intercept Modernisation
at the Open Rights Group wiki Surveillance Civil rights and liberties in the United Kingdom Mass intelligence-gathering systems Surveillance databases Government databases in the United Kingdom Home Office (United Kingdom) GCHQ

See also

References

External links