[Itpolicy-np] Re: Race Is On to 'Fingerprint' Phones, PCs

[Bipin Gautam]

British government discusses marketing Internet spy services...

1 December 2010 Last updated at 09:08 ET
(Source : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11888602 )

GCHQ technology 'could be sold'

The work of cyber security experts GCHQ is highly confidential

The government's secret listening post GCHQ could sell its technical
expertise to the private sector under plans being considered by the
government.

Security minister Dame Pauline Neville Jones said ministers were
"thinking about" ways in which GCHQ could supply services to private
firms.

"It's a live issue," she told the Commons science committee.

Scientists and cyber-security experts are employed at GCHQ, in
Cheltenham, to monitor e-mail and phone traffic.

Their work has always been considered top secret, but committee
chairman, Labour MP Andrew Miller, asked whether the government was
considering the "radical" step of the commercialisation of products,
working in partnership with the the private sector.

[snip]