The Bill states that the Secretary of State shall issue a code of practice relating to the retention by communications service providers such as ISPs of communications data. Such data would include details of the sender and recipient of e-mail and logs of web sites visited, but not the content of communications. The Bill provides that the purpose of retention can be national security – or alternatively, “for the purposes of the prevention or detection of crime or the prosecution of offenders.”
Lord Strathclyde, the Tory leader in the Lords, is quoted by The Telegraph describing the Bill as giving the Government the right “to commandeer private and personal information on the merest suspicion of a criminal offence quite unrelated to terrorism, something very few outside Tony Blair’s Cabinet actually want.”
The House of Lords voted by 228 votes to 133 to limit retention powers to purposes of national security only. It was one of seven defeats for the Government’s Bill. However, Government ministers are determined to fight the defeats and, according to press reports, still hope to pass the Bill before Christmas. According to The Times, Mr Blunkett accused the Tories of “disembowelling” vital parts of “a Bill to protect this country”.
The UK association for ISPs, the ISPA, initially backed the Bill in principle. However, it has expressed grave reservations since the Bill was published.