Money-grabbing BT 'profiting' from cybercrime investigations

silicon.com has learned that BT demands up to £150 every time the police ask to see copies of phone bills or other subscriber details as a part of criminal investigation.

All the other major fixed-line operators, including Cable and Wireless, Energis and NTL, provide the same information free of charge.

BT charges the police on a sliding tariff, depending on the data required. One pound will buy you basic subscriber information such as name and address, and £150 will get account details and call records.

BT declined to confirm how much it charges for each request, but claimed it is "not doing it for profit".

Peter Shipley, director of the Association of Chief Police Officers, said it is up to the companies themselves to decide what they want to charge. "It is a matter for the companies whether they feel under any obligation to provide this service free of charge in the public interest," he said.

The money-grabbing tactic has outraged the IT industry, particularly those working closely with the police. Neil Barrett, technical director at security consultancy IRM, said: "Almost all illicit activity on the internet starts with a telephone call somewhere to a dial-up account which ends up with an operator. Without [BT's] assistance, investigations will flounder; and if they make that assistance unnecessarily expensive, those investigations will become too expensive and will inevitably not be pursued."

Simon Janes, former detective at Scotland Yard's Computer Crime Unit, believes the police will increasingly need the help of BT. He said: "In order to track down cyber criminals we need to trace back the initial dial-up call to the internet and that requires the help of the telecomms companies. As cybercrime is on the increase, the force will be relying increasingly on the telephone companies' co-operation."

Janes said that police receive information from sources such as banks, insurance companies and other institutions free of charge. The police normally need a court order to access such data. But in the case of computer crime, they only have to ensure they are compliant with the Data Protection Act.