§ The Earl of Northeskasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they confirm the accuracy of Privacy International's calculation that a billion individual pieces of data (comprising e-mail logs and logs of Internet activity), representing requests to communications providers for access to around a million customer records, are released to the police and other official: bodies in each year; and, if not, what is the true. figure. [HL3001]
§ Lord Falconer of ThorotonIn the consultation paper,Access to communications data—respecting privacy and protecting the public from crime, the Government estimated that around half a million requests for communications data are made annually by law enforcement agencies, the intelligence services and other public authorities with functions to investigate specific criminal offences and conduct. No records are currently required to be kept, but the Government are consulting on the implementation of a regulatory framework for access to communications data (under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000) that would require retention of records.