Revealed, snoopers charter will cost YOU £2bn: Huge price of plan to let state spy on websites, emails and texts

Britain's snooping watchdog reveals grave doubts over the mass surveillance project

Internal documents say plans could lead to innocents being wrongly identified as criminals

Project has sparked huge row at Westminster, dividing the Coalition



Big Brother plans to spy on all internet visits, emails and texts will cost the taxpayer £2billion.

The extraordinary bill was revealed amid revelations that Britain’s snooping watchdog has grave doubts about the mass surveillance project.



The Office of the Information Commissioner said the case had ‘not been made’ to justify the sweeping expansion in the power of the police and other public bodies to trawl through private communications, including visits to Facebook and eBay.

Internal ICO papers, marked restricted, say the Orwellian plan could lead to the innocent being wrongly identified as criminals or terrorists and barred from flying.

Grave doubts: The mass surveillance project has sparked fears that it could lead to the innocent being wrongly identified as criminals or terrorists

Division: Splits in the coalition over the proposals were signalled by Tim Farron (left) while the concerns of the Information Commissioner's Office were uncovered by the Tory MP Dominic Raab (right)



A huge row has broken out at Westminster over the plans, which look certain to be included in the forthcoming Queen’s Speech.

Splits in the coalition over the proposals were signalled by Tim Farron, the Lib Dem president. He said: ‘We didn’t scrap ID cards to back creeping surveillance by other means. The State mustn’t be able to trace citizens at will.’

In opposition, both the Tories and the Liberal Democrats were fierce opponents of the policy, first suggested by Labour in 2006.

They are now pointing to the huge estimated cost of the spying project at a time when the Government is making cuts elsewhere.

The Home Office estimates that the programme – under which internet providers will be paid to store hundreds of millions of pieces of data for up to two years – will cost £2billion over its first decade alone.

Beyond this point there will be annual running costs of £200million – or £380 a minute.



Even these figures, which are based on 2009 prices, could be an underestimate given the complexity of the project – and officials’ terrible record for estimating the price of IT schemes.

The data will have to be stored securely, in a way which makes it easy for GCHQ, the government listening agency, to access. This requires huge resources which the Government has agreed to pay.

The alternative would have seen internet service providers passing on the cost to their customers.

Downing Street insisted that only times, dates, numbers and email and internet addresses would be accessible by GCHQ.

A warrant will still be required to access the content.

Ministers say the changes are needed to keep pace with technology. But the concerns of the Information Commissioner’s Office were uncovered by the Tory MP Dominic Raab, using freedom of information requests.

Staff prepared papers for the commissioner, Christopher Graham, in 2010 when it was first suggested that the Coalition might revive Labour’s scheme.

'This is a stark warning'

The documents say: ‘Our position remains that the case for the retention of this data still needs to be made. The value of historic communications data in criminal investigations has not yet been elucidated.’

Worryingly, they warn of serious consequences for the public if mistakes are made when the data is being stored.

Officials say: ‘Individuals may be wrongly identified, subject to identity fraud or there may just be a mistake. How do they put this right? Intelligence can be used to put people on no-fly lists, limit incomes or asset grabs by government agencies.

‘There needs to be a clear means of repair when something goes wrong, which it inevitably will at some point.’

The papers also warn of the potential for abuse by internet service providers, once they have been paid to collect the data.

Defence: Security minister James Brokenshire said the emphasis was on solving crime rather than 'real-time snooping on everybody's emails'

‘There needs to be some recognition that this additional data will be a honeypot as it will reveal the browsing habits and communications of celebrities, politicians etc.

‘Has a government minister been using web applications to communicate on Adultfriendfinder? Just how long has that celebrity being communicating with his alleged mistress on Skype?’

Mr Raab said: ‘This is a stark warning. Far from improving our security, these flawed plans to privatise Big Brother surveillance will subject every citizen to intrusive monitoring, and expose us to the risk of massive fraud on an unprecedented scale.’

Britain is already one of the most spied-upon nations – with three million operations carried out under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act – ostensibly an anti-terror law – over the last decade.



These have included thousands of operations by town hall bureaucrats, the Financial Services Authority, NHS trusts, the Environment Agency and a plethora of government departments.

Ministers are under pressure severely to restrict access to the new regime.

Councils have used their existing powers to snoop on families suspected of cheating school catchment area rules and putting their bins out on the wrong day.

Whitehall sources insist councils will have only very limited access to the information, and will require the approval of a magistrate. They will not have access to any sensitive data. Security minister James Brokenshire said the emphasis was on solving crime rather than ‘real-time snooping on everybody’s emails’.

He told Radio 4’s The World at One: ‘We absolutely get the need for appropriate safeguards and for appropriate protections to be put in place around any changes that might come forward.

‘What this is not is the previous government’s plan of creating some sort of great big Big Brother database. That is precisely not what this is looking at.’