Intellectual Property Law

The UK's Home Office is supporting a proposal that would allow British police or MI5 agents to hack home, office and other private computers without a warrant to intercept e-mail traffic and monitor a user's other computer activities.

The proposal, initiated by the European Union council of ministers, calls for British police to install spyware on personal computers at the request of other European nations that suspect UK residents of involvement in criminal activity.

The only authorization that's needed for the surveillance is for a senior officer to determine that the monitoring is "proportionate" and necessary to investigate a "serious" crime (any crime that carries a possible jail sentence of at least three years). This could involve, for example, anyone suspected of terrorism, pedophilia or identity or credit card theft.

To conduct the remote hacking, police can send an e-mail containing a virus to the suspect's computer, break into a residence to install a keystroke logger onto a machine or simply place a surveillance van in the vicinity of a wireless network to intercept the traffic.

British police already have the ability to remotely search and monitor computers under legislation passed in the 90s, but such remote monitoring apparently has been rare until now, according to London's Sunday Times. The EU's proposal would open the door for France, Germany or any other EU country to request surveillance of a UK resident.

Civil libertarians are calling on Parliament to enact legislation to require warrants and oversight of the program.

Photo: AP