POLICE TO GET POWER TO TAP E-MAIL

COMPUTER users who refuse to divulge their passwords to the
authorities face up to two years in jail under increased police powers
to be unveiled in next month's Queen's speech.

Other measures drawn up by the government will make it easier for
companies to monitor employees' phone calls and e-mails. A third part
of the crackdown will give the police new authority to tap mobile
phone calls, pager messages and e-mail.

The plans were already attracting criticism last night, with one Tory
MP warning that the government risked creating "a state surveillance
system like something out of Orwell's 1984".

Government ministers will justify the measures as necessary to trap
pornographers, drug traffickers and fraudsters who exploit new
technology. Police officers who gain a search warrant from the courts
can already look at computer files, but provisions in the forthcoming
e-commerce bill will allow them to demand passwords used to protect
sensitive data. A suspect who witholds them faces a jail term of up to
two years.

"Paedophiles and drug barons tend to send material that can be
unlocked only if you know a code often extending to many digits," said
a senior government source last night. "The law has to catch up with
this."

The bill will also legally oblige internet service providers (ISPs) to
keep records showing to and from whom material has been sent and
received. In spite of industry complaints about the cost, ministers
want the ISPs to keep detailed records on all customers for days at a
time.

"The provision will prove invaluable in tracking down paedophile
rings, for example," said a source at the Department of Trade and
Industry, which has drawn up the measure in co-operation with the Home
Office.

Many companies monitor employees' phone calls and e-mails to ensure
customers and clients are being dealt with according to required
standards. This is a grey area legally, but the Home Office is to give
firms a legal right to monitor their workers, so long as they warn
them that this is company practice.

The proposed new Interception of Communication Act will also deal with
criminals who frequently change their mobile phone numbers and e-mail
addresses, to exploit the fact that warrants are issued for a
particular number or address. New catch-all warrants will cover all of
a named individual's communications devices and will last for three
months instead of two.