The Home Office recently published a consultation document and draft regulations to implement a European Directive requiring the retention of electronically generated data. The consultation document states that this is “to enable public authorities to undertake their lawful activities to investigate, detect and prosecute crime and to protect the public.” It goes on to say “the term communications data does not refer to the content of communications. It’s about:

• Who is communicating with whom?
• When and where are they communicating?
• What type of communication is it?”

In the aftermath of the July 2005 London bombings, the then Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, took the lead in securing the Directive, which specifically places the provisions in the context of the EC’s “declaration condemning the terrorist attacks on London”. So far so good, but in implementing the requirements the Government is going way beyond terrorist offences. The catch-all provisions of the 2000 Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act mean that access to personal internet and text data will be available to all public bodies licensed under that Act. According to the ‘Guardian’ “this means that hundreds of public bodies including local councils, health authorities, the Food Standards Agency, the Health and Safety Commission and even the education standards watchdog will be able to require telecommunications companies to hand over the personal data”.

Opposition spokesmen have condemned these requirements as a “snooper’s charter”, but the Home Office loftily declares “we consider that these measures are a proportionate interference with individuals’ right to privacy to ensure protection of the public.” The recent track record of public bodies in protecting sensitive data gives little cause for confidence.

If you want to contribute to the debate you have until 31 October. For the full text of the consultation paper, the EU Directive and the draft regulations see http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/cons-2008-transposition?view=Binary

Ask returning holiday makers how things went and they usually respond in superlatives. It is only later that you hear about the airport delays or poor food or upset stomachs or ghastly weather or other matters which reduce the holiday experience to, like most things in life, no more than reasonably satisfying.

Now there is a new potential nightmare to haunt the post holiday period. Under plans approved in principle by the European Parliament, British citizens could be convicted in their absence by foreign courts for such offences as traffic trangressions, theft, shoplifting or fraud, up to assault or murder. The proposals would allow citizens to be extradited automatically under fast-track procedures at the request of another EU country on the basis of a decision by the foreign court.
In Britain it is only in the most exceptional cases that trials take place in absentia, but such trials are more common in other EU countries. The new provisions are not a case of the perfidious European Parliament trampling unbidden on the British justice system. Britain was one of seven countries (since you ask, Slovenia, France, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Slovakia and Germany were the others) who sponsored a raft of proposals, including in absentia judgements, “on the mutual recognition of judicial decisions in criminal matters and the strengthening of mutual trust between Member States”. According to the Ministry of Justice the reform meets “an important and pressing need, namely to ensure that requests for the execution of European Arrest Warrants provide the necessary guarantees for citizens who have been sentenced abroad in their absence”. Last week the European Parliament approved the proposals by a thumping 609 to 60 majority, and the matter now goes forward for ratification by the European Council.

The decision has met with widespread opposition. Philip Bradbourn MEP, Conservative justice and home affairs spokesman in the European Parliament, warned that the decision “goes against one of the most fundamental cornerstones of British justice – that the accused has a right to defend himself at trial.” Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party, said the plan removed basic rights long enshrined in British law. “If we’re accused we must be able to know who accused us”. Pieter Cleppe, of pressure group Open Europe, said that “this proposal could open the door to serious miscarriages of justice”. The European Criminal Bar Association is strongly of the view that “in absentia judgements are by their very nature a violation of the fundamental rights of the accused”. And, in typically trenchant manner, Tim Worstall trumpets that this is “absolute bloody madness… Magna Carta did indeed die in vain.”

So you have been warned. Anyone for Brighton next year?