I guess I do not find it surprising that they want controls, but it is a but curious how they are trying to get them put into place:

The Guardian has learned that police and security agencies have been lobbying ministers and senior officials, expressing fears about the potential for voice-over-internet-protocol technologies to hide a caller’s identity. Their aim? To get VoIP providers to monitor calls and find ways to identify who is calling whom – and even record them.

Though enforcement agencies say their main concern is VoIP’s inability to deliver a 999 service, sources counter that this is a smokescreen to cover police efforts to monitor calls and identify individuals – an agenda that becomes more credible in the light of submissions made by police to the communications regulator, Ofcom.

[…]

“At present, law enforcement agencies have great difficulty in tracing the origin of VoIP calls,” wrote [Detective Superintendent] Macleod. “This poses significant threats to our democratic society”

[…]

According to experts at BT’s Martlesham Heath research labs, the only real solution would be a complete overhaul of the routers that make up the internet backbone, an exercise they estimate will cost £1bn.

“The network was never designed with identity in mind. When it was set up it was for the free and easy exchange of data.”

The Guardian does a fine job explaining how portable devices and VoIP are becoming so common so fast that the government regulators are having a hard time keeping up. The quote by Macleod is very telling of the kind of one-sided position the police might attempt to force, unfortunately. In other words, are we meant to believe that surveillance does not also pose a threat to democratic society?