LONDON — Internet cafe users in the British capital may want to watch what they download. Scotland Yard is advising administrators of public Web spaces to periodically poke through their customers’ files and keep an eye out for suspicious activity.
The Metropolitan Police said Thursday that the initiative — which has been rolled out over the past weeks under the auspices of the government’s counterterrorism strategy — is aimed at reminding cafe owners that authorities are ready to hear from them if they have concerns about their Internet users.
Posters and computer desktop images emblazoned with Scotland Yard’s logo are also being distributed.
“It’s not about asking owners to spy on their customers, it’s about raising awareness,” a police spokesman said, speaking anonymously in line with force policy. “We don’t ask them to pass on data for us.”
Still, he said, police were “encouraging people to check on hard drives.” He did not elaborate, saying it would be up to cafe owners to decide if or how to monitor what customers left on their computers.
Checking hard drives could reveal what customers were up to fairly easily under the right circumstances, according to Graham Cluley of software security company Sophos. For example, an owner could examine a browser’s Internet history or sift through the programs or documents the customer downloaded — although distinguishing which user did what might be difficult in a busy cafe.
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