The IMP will require communications services providers to record and store details of all electronic communications from email to VoIP calls. This has raised a number of concerns over privacy and raised widespread alarm in the communications industry regarding the feasibility, morality and effectiveness of this project.
Entanet’s Head of Operations, Neil Watson says that there is a real danger that the difficult balance that needs to be struck between privacy and security is swinging too far in the direction of the latter. He states: “Ignoring for a minute the huge privacy and ethical argument that this ignites, we also have concerns over the usefulness of the data in terms of fighting crime and even the feasibility of collection and storage.
This will be the largest IT project ever undertaken by the UK and previous attempts leave us far from confident in its success, take the NPfIT in the healthcare sector for example.”