Ananova :

Internet surveillance is rife in Asia according to a Canadian web privacy expert.

This comes as authorities in the US and UK begin monitoring communication logs in a massive effort to identify the perpetrators of Tuesday's terrorist attacks.

He claims there have been possible privacy violations in China, Japan and Singapore.

Sociologist David Lyon - a professor at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario - says numerous governments are requiring service providers to preserve information on users.

He believes laws in Singapore give police the power to demand documents without a warrant and claims the government can routinely monitor anything considered a threat to national security.

The existence of criminal groups such as the Yakuza in Japan is being used to justify message interception by authorities according to his research paper.

In China, visits to websites operated by banned groups such as the Falun Gong spiritual movement spur threats of instant detection.

A Singapore official defended the city-state's internet controls in a speech at a conference.

"Laws and regulations bring order and structure to the unruly world of the internet," says David Lim, the country's minister of state for defence.

The government recently passed controversial legislation restricting the extent to which opposition parties can campaign online.

Story filed: 11:29 Friday 14th September 2001

• Privacy
• Cyber Surveillance
• Internet
• Technology
• Singapore
• World

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