New surveillance system could be used for indiscriminate monitoring

The Met police have acquired a new piece of technology to monitor mobile phone communications, which also has the potential to track individual’s movements in real time. This surveillance system emits a signal across roughly ten square kilometres and creates a false network that mobile phones try to connect to. This allows the Met police to do three things. Firstly, it allows the police to monitor calls and SMS messages more easily than they can at present. Secondly, the internet is taken down by an ‘intelligent denial of service’.

During the July riots, the use of social networking sites and Blackberry messenger were cited as ways of individuals communicating and organising very quickly; the use of this technology by the Met police means that any communication via the internet would not be possible. And finally, connecting to the false networks sends out the IMSI and IMEI security codes of the phone, and these are used to track an individual’s movements in real time. This technology has clear applications in riot situations where key protagonists can be singled out, and the intelligent denial of service is designed to prevent mobile phones being used to remotely detonate bombs.

However, there are also very concerning ethical issues that lawyers and privacy groups have raised. Due to the distance covered by the signal, there is indiscriminate monitoring of all people within ten square kilometres, nothing is known about where the data is stored or who has access to it, and a body of people is cut off from information on the internet that may help them avoid potentially violent areas.

The creators of this surveillance system, Datong Plc are a Leeds-based company that have the US Secret Service and the Ministry of Defence as customers. In 2009, Datong Plc were denied an export license to ship technology to an unnamed Asia Pacific country as the software was seen as having the potential to be used to commit human rights offences.