Civil liberties group cries foul as government renews bid to force telcos to retain communications data.
The U.K. government plans to fast-track a new 'emergency' bill requiring telcos to retain communications data.
In a statement on Thursday, the government said there is an urgent need to usher in new rules after the European Court of Justice invalidated the EU's Data Retention Directive, which stipulated that member states must store individual citizens' voice call and SMS records, emails and Internet usage and make the information available to law enforcement agencies.
It is worth pointing out though that this happened in April, which begs the question: why has it taken several months for it to become an emergency?
"As events in Iraq and Syria demonstrate, now is not the time to be scaling back on our ability to keep our people safe," said Prime Minister David Cameron.
