IN PRAISE OF DAVID BLUNKETT

He Isn't Known For Listening To His Critics, But That Makes The Home
Secretary's Change Of Heart On Data Protection All The More Welcome

It is well known that 'Dog Bites Man' is not news, but 'Man Bites Dog'
definitely is. Well then, try this for size: 'Blunkett Listens to Critics,
Changes Policy'. 'Eh?' you say, "David Blunkett, Home Secretary - the Man
Who Always Knows What's Good For You - changing his mind!'

Yep. I cannot quite believe it myself, but it's what seems to have
happened. Last June, the Guardian revealed that the Home Office was
planning a breathtaking extension of the rights of officialdom to access
communications data. The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act of 2000
(RIPA) had given these rights only to the police, the intelligence
services, Customs & Excise and the Inland Revenue. But as the security
panic triggered by 9/11 took hold, the control freaks in the Home Office
saw a golden opportunity to award data-fishing licences to virtually every
public authority in the land. Plans were laid to amend RIPA accordingly.

Under these plans, the list of public bodies with the power to demand
access to communications data was lengthened to include seven Whitehall
departments, every local authority in the country, NHS authorities in
Northern Ireland and Scotland, and 11 quangos ranging from the postal
services commission to the food standards agency. No argument was ever
adduced for why, say, the Food Standards Agency might need access to the
names and addresses of telephone subscribers, lists of telephone calls made
and received, the identity of the sources and destinations of emails - not
to mention mobile phone location data which can pinpoint anyone's
whereabouts to within a few hundred metres. Yet the Home Office was
proposing to let even the food police in on these secrets.

There was, of course, some uproar - mainly from the usual suspects
(including this column). There were hostile pieces in the Guardian and the
Daily Telegraph. Organisations like the Foundation for Information Policy
Research and Liberty warned about the colossal - and essentially
unregulated - invasions of privacy that would be facilitated under the new
arrangements. Telecoms companies and Internet Services Providers trembled
at the prospect of queues of inquisitive jobsworths whose demands they
would now have to service. But to be honest, few of us expected to make
much headway against a Home Secretary riding so high on the crest of an
anti-terrorism wave.

And yet, it looks as though the criticism has had some effect. According to
a draft policy paper leaked to the Guardian last week, Mr Blunkett has
backed off. The revised policy document proposes to give only five new
bodies - each with a serious crime-or terrorism-fighting role - the
automatic power to demand access to the full range of communications data.
They are: the Scottish drug enforcement agency, the serious fraud office,
the UK atomic energy constabulary, fire authorities (for investigating
suspicious fires and hoax 999 calls) and NHS trusts (also for handling
emergency calls and investigating hoaxes). There is a further list of
authorities which will be allowed access to subscriber data (names and
addresses) but not to traffic information.

If the leaked document is accurate, there has been a significant change of
heart within the Home Office. The journalistic temptation is to pillory Mr
Blunkett for a U-turn or to ridicule him for having to abandon an
unworkable Orwellian scheme. For once, however, the temptation should be
resisted. It is genuinely difficult, in these dangerous times, to strike a
balance between the liberties of a free society and the needs of the state.
Last June, Mr Blunkett drew the line in the wrong place. He was criticised
- - and he listened. Now he proposes to draw the line in a more intelligent
place. His new proposals are still flawed, but they are better than before.
This is the way democracies are supposed to work. So let us have two cheers
for the Home Secretary. And a darkened room for your columnist, who never
thought he would utter these words.