vigilant TV

The Guardian says the UK plans not just to make national ID cards mandatory, but to record all use in an audit trail. Unspecified “safeguards” are mentioned to brush off privacy concerns.

Mr Harrison told a Law Society conference yesterday that ministers had started with the assumption that information on the pattern of everyday transactions involving each card would not be kept on the central computer database.

But following representations from the information commissioner they were now minded to keep information “about the audit of transactions” to allow the authorities to investigate abuses of the scheme. Although no final decision had been taken he said there would need to be safeguards to prevent abuse of such information.

– Guardian, Government will track ID card use.

Home Secretary David Blunkett is using the Madrid bombings to justify fast tracking the compulsory ID card scheme and increasing law enforcement surveillance capabilities, according to the Telegraph. Such plans might also include a fingerprint database of the entire EU population.

Mr Blunkett presented fellow [EU] interior ministers with a long list of “very practical measures” to help police and intelligence agencies hunt down terrorist cells.

“What I am interested in is hard practical action like sharing communications data, which gets into the use of mobile phones and the internet,” he said.

The British plan would oblige telephone companies and internet providers to store detailed data on calls, email transmissions and websites visited, overturning the EU’s data protection rules.

– Telegraph, Time to cut waffle and tackle terror, Blunkett tells EU.

More at White Rose, here and here. See also two AP articles, EU Ministers Warn Others to Fight Terror, and EU Ministers OK Anti-Terrorism Measures.