Snooping on Facebook

By Brad

Over in the UK, a new proposal would allow the government to keep tabs on how citizens use popular social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. Civil liberty watchdogs are, predictably, up in arms about the plan. And as the BBC reports, so are some politicians:

Liberal Democrat MP Tom Brake said the websites contained sensitive personal details and he was concerned information could leak from any government-controlled database.

The Independent newspaper quoted him as saying similar plans to store phone and email records threatened to be the “most expensive snooper’s charter in history”.

“It is deeply worrying that they now intend to monitor social networking sites which contain very sensitive data like sexual orientation, religious beliefs and political views,” he said.

Facebook’s official response is that the proposal is “overkill.” As for the government’s response:

A spokesman said: “The government has no interest in the content of people’s social network sites and this is not going to be part of our upcoming consultation.

“We have been clear that the communications revolution has been rapid in this country and the way in which we collect communications data needs to change, so that law enforcement agencies can maintain their ability to tackle terrorism and gather evidence.”

Stay tuned…