Privacy sacrificed in war on terror, says spy chief

A FRESH privacy row erupted today after a former security chief warned innocent people's rights may have to be sacrificed to fight terrorism.

Sir David Omand, the Cabinet Office's former security and intelligence co-ordinator, said the security services would need access to a wide range of personal data, including phone records, emails and travel information.

"Finding out other people's secrets is going to involve breaking everyday moral rules," he said in a research paper on national security strategy.

Sir David stressed that tracking terrorists by using the growing number of databases would also mean going through the details of some innocent people.

"Modern intelligence access will often involve intrusive methods of surveillance and investigation, accepting that, in some respects this may have to be at the expense of some aspects of privacy rights," he wrote in his document for a public policy research think tank.

"This is a hard choice, and goes against current calls to curb the so-called surveillance society - but it is greatly preferable to tinkering with the rule of law, or derogating from fundamental human rights. Sir David said that if the public were to agree on the importance of increasing intelligence capability, "being able to demonstrate proper legal authorisation and appropriate oversight of the use of such intrusive intelligence activity may become a major future issue for the intelligence community".

"Intrusive" surveillance techniques could involve mining databases for information on airline bookings and other travel data, passport and biometric data, immigration, identity and border records, criminal records and other government and private sector data, including financial and telephone and other communications records.

However, Shami Chakrabarti, director of human rights group Liberty, warned that Sir David's comments could undermine public trust.

She added: "His suggestion that the authorities should 'break everyday moral rules' is misconceived and contradicts other parts of his argument.

"The public well understands the need for proportionate privacy interferences for security objectives.

"But we will never sacrifice our privacy altogether and rightly seek greater rather than less protection from abuses of surveillance."

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne also warned against creating a "Big Brother" state.

He said: "Just because you can do something technologically does not mean you should do it in the intelligence area any more than in genetics or cloning."

Sir David, who left the Cabinet Office in 2005 but whose views are believed to be shared by current high ranking civil servants, said information which could be key in deterring terror strikes may be held in national records, covered by Data Protection legislation, but it might also be held offshore by other nations or by global companies.

He added: "Access to such information, and in some cases to the ability to apply data mining and pattern recognition software to databases, might well be the key to effective pre-emption in future terrorist cases."

The dispute comes just a day after Justice Secretary Jack Straw vetoed the release of Cabinet papers on the decision to invade Iraq.