A contentious proposal to create a massive database of communications metadata in the United Kingdom has just become even more controversial. According to reports in the British press, a "consultation paper" laying out the plan, slated for release in January, contemplates outsourcing the maintenance of the database to private-sector firms. The proposal has already come under fire from civil liberties groups, the European human rights commissioner, and former public officials.

Initially included in Britain's Communications Data Bill as part of a sweeping Interception Modernisation Programme, the surveillance proposal was dropped from the legislation in September, but it was not abandoned. The database is projected to cost some £12 billion ($17.5 billion US), and would contain metadata about every phone call placed, every e-mail or text message sent, and every Web site visited in the UK, reports say. Such "metadata" would include routing information, such as the sender and recipient of an e-mail, as well as times and dates.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, a strong proponent of the plan, has repeatedly stressed that the database would not include the contents of any communication. Still, the sheer quantity of data would provide a highly detailed portrait of the movements and activities of individuals.

The sweeping program is necessary, according to the Home Office, because "the way in which we collect communications data needs to change so that law enforcement agencies can maintain their ability to tackle serious crime and terrorism." Proponents say rigid safeguards will prevent the misuse of personal data.

Not everyone is convinced. Former Director of Public Prosecutions Sir Ken Macdonald, who has become a prominent critic of growing government surveillance, called the database an "unimaginable hell-house of personal private information," notwithstanding promised safeguards.

"Authorisations for access might be written into statute. The most senior ministers and officials might be designated as scrutineers. But none of this means anything," Macdonald told The Guardian. "All history tells us that reassurances like these are worthless in the long run. In the first security crisis the locks would loosen."

The British civil liberties group Liberty has similarly called the plan "folly."

The plan may also face international opposition. Earlier this month, the European human rights court ruled that a similarly sweeping DNA database, which contained genetic samples from thousands of citizens who had not been convicted of any crime, violated privacy rights.

And Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights, has already expressed his misgivings about the metadata surveillance plan. Hammarberg told reporters he found it "worrying that new legislation proposals intend to expand the authorities' power to allow personal data collection and sharing," which he said would "would increase the risk of violation of individuals' privacy" even with "safety measures" in place.

If the British proposal sounds familiar, it should. A similarly broad metadata collection and analysis effort was one component of the National Security Agency's extralegal Stellar Wind program here in the US. That aspect of the program is believed to have been significantly modified or abandoned after Justice Department lawyers staged a virtual mutiny, threatening to resign if it were reauthorized over their legal objections.

Whether some successor to that program continues today, or falls within the scope of warrantless surveillance authorized by this summer's FISA Amendments Act, remains unclear.