The Governments plan to monitor social networking sites such as Facebook is yet more evidence of this Government’s obsession with hoarding vast amounts of people’s personal data.

We need complete clarity from the Government over what data they will retain and how it will be kept secure. Will membership of Facebook groups or people listing ‘suspicious’ interests be caught in their dragnet?

We also need guarantees that the Home Secretary’s ‘Dustbin Stasi’ won’t use terrorism legislation to access retained Facebook data for frivolous purposes, such as identifying people who let their dogs foul the pavement.