Chris Thompson   Chris Thompson on the internet

We’re looking at a surveillance monster, seeing how much the notion of Big Brother Britain has grown in recent weeks. Communications firms are now being asked to record internet contacts in a move to modernise and improve police surveillance tactics. In other words, its doesn’t just affect email, but Facebook and Twitter too, and any other form of social networking you might partake in.

They say that they are striving for a “careful balance” between investigative powers and people’s privacy, but I can’t help but wonder if such a thing is possible. Supposing that it is, where do you even draw the line? And how do you draw the line? When you compare this to something like call recording, it feels a far more intrusive beast. Like it’s more personal, somehow – as if someone has the power to read your letters before they reach their destination.

Probably even more worrying is that, if you know how, presumably it’s just as possible for anyone to do this sort of thing. Whereas before, it was something you might see from a hacker in a movie. It was the stuff of fantasy and science fiction. But it suddenly becomes very real when it’s being reported by the BBC.

If people record me on the phone with call logging devices, I don’t really mind. It just feels normal now. Every company seems to do it these days, whether you ring them about banking or internet. But this new monitoring is something different.

It will, of course, help the police in a number of ways. Just knowing that it’s possible, though – well, I find it quite a terrifying prospect.