Previously secret documents reveal extent of British surveillance

Revealed in a case brought by Privacy International about the use of so-called “Bulk Personal Datasets” (BPDs), the extracts show that the UK government’s intelligence services, GCHQ, MI5, and MI6, routinely requisition personal data from potentially thousands of public and private organisations.

This includes data held by financial institutions and may also include anything from confidential NHS records to databases of people who have signed electronic petitions.

The term “Bulk Personal Datasets” was first used in March last year in an Intelligence & Security Committee (ISC) report. The ISC, the parliamentary committee that oversees the work of the intelligence agencies and which has full security clearance, was unaware of the use of BPDs until recently.

The documents reveal the potential to requisition medical records and confidential information shared with a doctor (including blood group, physical characteristics (hair/eye colour), biometrics), travel records, financial records, population data, commercial data (details of corporations and individuals involved in commercial activities), regular feeds from internet and phone companies, billing data or subscriber details, content of communications (including with lawyers, MPs, or doctors), and records from government departments.

The Intelligence and Security Committee reported (paras 156, 158) that there are hundreds of millions of records which may be linked together. The datasets are likely to contain significant quantities of information about British citizens. None of the intelligence agencies have been able to provide statistics about the volume of personal information about British citizens included in the datasets.

Millie Graham Wood, legal officer at Privacy International said: “The information revealed by this disclosure shows the staggering extent to which the intelligence agencies hoover up our data.

“The agencies themselves admit that the majority of data collected relates to individuals who are not a threat to national security or suspected of a crime.

“This highly sensitive information about us is vulnerable to attack from hackers, foreign governments, and criminals. The agencies have been doing this for 15 years in secret and are now quietly trying to put these powers on the statute book for the first time, in the Investigatory Powers Bill, which is currently being debated in Parliament.

“These documents reveal a lack of openness and transparency with the public about these staggering powers and a failure to subject them to effective Parliamentary scrutiny.”