Privacy - the police can't hear you if you're a virtual voice!

The Data Communications Group - a police and industry liaison body - has lobbied Ofcom:

expressing fears about the potential for voice-over-internet-protocol technologies to hide a caller's identity. Their aim? To get VoIP providers to monitor calls and find ways to identify who is calling whom - and even record them.

according to an article in today's Guardian Unlimited. Ofcom has responded: "Some of the issues raised are to do with privacy, and that is not within our ambit" and suggested that this is a matter of the Information Commissioner. The article makes it clear that VoIP is simply the latest problem to emerge for the law enforcers: instant messaging systems such as MSN leave no traceable sender's address either.

The article ends with a brief history of Government v technology which seems to show authority struggling to keep up with commercial pressures and failing dismally!

As an aside, it appears that VoIP is unable to offer a 999 service... you can't help wondering if that is a problem at the sending end, or at the receiving end, can you?