UK police and ISPs debate legal access to email

Police and Internet service providers (ISP) in the UK have started working together to combat crime on the Internet. Private seminars held behind closed doors later this month aim to identify which electronic evidence could - and should - be made available to police investigating a crime.

Detective chief superintendent Keith Akerman, chair of the Computer Crime Group set up by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), said: "We aim to cover all crimes. We will publish working guidelines on how evidence is gathered, its integrity, and its presentation in court."

The actual content of emails is expected to remain private, in all circumstances, in line with Akerman's statement that the new guidelines will follow the Data Protection Act's existing laws for telephone operators. Those laws state that police may access details of the timing of a phone call, and who participated, but not the content of the call. "Content is not at issue here," Akerman added.

He also said that even if someone received an email from a criminal, it did not prove that they knew him or her. "The link between email addresses and real people is too tenuous to stand up in court," he said. "It could, however, be useful information."

But even tracing the destination of an email is harder than tracking a phone call. Tim Pearson, on behalf of the Internet Service Providers Association, said: "The only call logged is the one between a user and their local ISP - not the recipient of the email."

Keith Mitchell, chair of the London Internet Exchange, said tracing the destination of an email relies on co-operation between ISPs. "In theory, the SMTP protocol can log who is emailing who, but it really depends on which software the ISP is using."

Speaking exclusively to Silicon News, Mitchell said: "The ISP industry is beginning to co-operate on crime, but peering agreements vary from 20 page legal documents to a couple of emails and some router configurations."

Mitchell believed the ACPO initiative will encourage ISPs to set up a mutual system for tracking the emails of known criminals.