Risk: Informational
The governement is trying to help fight crime and terrorism by proposing a database that will hold every phone call, email and website hit.
The information would be held for at least 12 months and if permission was granted from the courts, the police and security services would be able to access it.
Concern is bound to arise over the government's ability to manage a system holding billions of records. About 57 billion text messages were sent in Britain last year, while an estimated 3 billion e-mails are sent every day. In recent months reports of missing data has been heavily publicised, which has added to this public concern.
If these plans were to go ahead, it may make it simpler for law enforcement agencies to retrieve the information instead of having to approach each service provider. However, it is thought that the scope for abuse will be greater if all of the records were held on one database.