Council snoopers will be given even greater powers to pry into our phone, email and internet records - landing the taxpayer with a bill of almost £50million.
Town halls, along with the police, security services, health authorities and other public bodies, will have access to ' communication' records of anyone suspected of involvement in even the most minor crime.
The powers, which stem from an EU directive supposedly designed to catch terrorists, will even allow police to track down those who have told friends they are planning to harm themselves.
But it will cost the taxpayer £46.58million over eight years to compensate mobile phone companies and internet firms for storing and providing the data.
Critics said the measure took Britain a step closer to becoming a surveillance state.
Shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve said: 'Yet again the Government have proved themselves unable to resist the temptation to take a power quite properly designed to combat terrorism to snoop on the lives of ordinary people in everyday circumstances.
'It is typical of this Government that they also intend to make the taxpayer pay extra for the privilege.'
The controversy centres on an EU directive passed in the aftermath of the July 7 terror attacks, in London, in 2005.
Britain said it was crucial for terrorism investigations that police and security services could access times, dates and recipients of a suspect's landline, mobile phone, email and internet communications.
A deadline was set for implementing the powers by March 2009. And yesterday the Home Office published proposals for how this will be done.
It is intending to give public bodies covered by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 - including local councils - the power to access communications data.
The rules will not be limited to detecting terrorism and serious crime - they will be applied to any offence.
Town halls can already request some of the data, and have used it to try to trace minor offenders.
But these rules will make it compulsory for phone and internet companies to hand over personal information from the previous 12 months.
At the moment, arrangements are largely voluntary. Public bodies will not be able to read emails nor listen to phone calls.
Examples given by the Government include someone who tells a friend by email, or via the internet, they are intending to harm themselves.
If contacted by the friend, the police would use their powers to locate a home address and visit the property.
Phil Booth, of the NO2ID campaign, said: 'No one would ever say that surveillance is not required for the most serious crimes and terrorism.
'But to extend such powers and make it so simple for any official to peek into your private affairs shows we are now entering into a database state.'
However, a Home Office spokesman defended the move. 'This data is a vital tool to investigations and intelligence gathering in support of national security and crime.'
It will 'enable UK law enforcement to benefit fully from historical communications data' and 'enhance our national security', he added.
UK Lockdown point of view
All they need to do now is introduce curfews and checkpoints on every street corner and it'll be just like the old Soviet union, know that the EU-SSR are using terror, crime and fake environmentalism to transform all of Europe into a centrally controlled police state they've had this pre-planned since the treaty of Rome in 1957(enacted 1958), the deception in this article is to make it appear as if this is a UK law based on an EU anti-terror directive the truth is that the Sovietisation of our county was planned decades ago by the EU Globalists who have placed agents (Traitors) in local, regional and national government to make it appear as if this tyrannical policy has any domestic support, this has nothing to do with terror or crime and everything to do with our enslavement under the New World Order master plan.
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