Police have demanded the power to view the internet browsing history of everyone in Britain in advance of a major surveillance bill being published next week.
Senior officers have lobbied the government to force telecommunications companies to retain for 12 months data that would disclose specific web addresses visited by customers.
The move would enable police to seize details of the websites and internet applications used by anyone they wanted to investigate, from suspects to missing persons. They believe the enhanced power to be essential even for standard investigations given the scale of activity now carried out online.
Police maintain that being able to log visits to child abuse sites and gain details of social media pages visited by missing persons is key to their