THE UK Home Secretary secretively signed a "special certificate" last year that gives foreign security agencies real-time access to traffic camera images and related data monitoring British motorists on highways throughout the UK.

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Under the authorisation signed last July 4 by Jacqui Smith, video feeds and still images captured from roadside TV cameras, along with personal data derived from them, can be transmitted out of the UK to countries such as the US, that are outside the European Economic Area.

Home Secretary Smith failed to mention the exception in a statement she made to Parliament less than two weeks later on July 17, 2007 outlining Metropolitan Police exemptions to the 1998 Data Protection Act.

The dispensation gives British police "anti-terrorism" officers the permission to transmit images and information overseas, based upon any representation that the materials are relevant to a "terrorism" threat either in the UK or elsewhere.

Secret "special certificates"? At first they were going to call them "get out of jail free" cards, but that was just ridiculous, so they came up with this.