Watching The Detectives

The British State's desire for its citizens' private data is becoming unquenchable.

As part of a minor act of disobedience, I decided to send two Freedom of Information requests. The first to the Home Secretary asking for her email metadata. The second to the Police and Crime Commissioner for Surrey asking for her web browsing history. After all, if they can spy on me, why can't I spy on how they're using their taxpayer-funded computers?

Unsurprisingly, the Home Office rejected my request saying that it was "vexatious" and it was a "scattergun approach and seems solely designed for the purpose of ‘fishing’ for information without any idea of what might be revealed."

Well duh! Of course, in so doing, they rather eloquently prove my point - trawling vast troves of data with no idea what you're looking for is a dangerous pursuit.

What was more surprising is that Surrey Police approved my request!

I started out by making an FoI request on Twitter (a perfectly valid way to make a request).

Terence Eden is on Mastodon

@edent

Replying to @DameLynneOwens@CCLynneOwens please can I have a list of your Internet history from your work computer and phone. Consider this an #FoI request. Thanks.

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After a few delays...

Terence Eden is on Mastodon

@edent

Replying to @SurreyPolice@SurreyPolice the last 12 months for preference. Many thanks.

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Surrey Police

@SurreyPolice

Replying to @edent@edent Sorry for the delay. We're still processing your request & expect to send a final response within 2 weeks. Will update if any change.

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I received the answer...

Terence Eden is on Mastodon

@edent

Replying to @DameLynneOwens@CCLynneOwens please can I have a list of your Internet history from your work computer and phone. Consider this an #FoI request. Thanks.

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Surrey Police

@SurreyPolice

Replying to @edent@edent We apologise for the delay in responding to your request. You can now view the response on our website: surrey.police.uk/About-Us/Your-…

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You can download the entire report as a PDF.

A few points to note...

• Fair play, I wasn't expecting them to release this! It does somewhat undermine my argument that the state keeps secret information it desires from its citizens.
• It's a PDF - so not quite open data - but good enough.
• I'm not convinced that the data are entirely accurate. Doesn't seem like a lot of usage - and a suspicious lack of tracking data is reported (although that may well be hidden by their automated reporting tools).
• It's possible to draw some (incorrect) conclusions from the data.

Terence Eden is on Mastodon

@edent

Replying to @SurreyPoliceBlimey! Didn't expect @SurreyPolice to answer this FoI for @NCA_LynneOwens' browsing data.
x.com/surreypolice/s… pic.x.com/memipzuevp

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Jacob Aron

@jjaron

Replying to @edent@edent @SurreyPolice @NCA_LynneOwens Full list includes a primary school website, from which I can infer a fair bit, should have redacted?

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@jjaron @edent @SurreyPolice I visited it to be interviewed for child's project - so no inference needed. I was looking for directions Tweet from NCA_LynneOwens

The Government want a lot more data that this - and will give it to potentially hundreds of organisations. The risk of your late night browsing sessions leaking remains high.

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