I'm also taking the line that it is the sort of thing that brings the European Parliament and EU into disrepute, being an almost textbook example of back-door unaccountable lawmaking. Make MEPs feel that something is being sneaked past them, and you might make them annoyed enough to start poking around with it.

Of course, the slight problem for me as a Londoner is that I have nine MEPs, one of whom - Syed Kamall - is sizeable responsible for this. I'm targetting those of the others who I think might be least sympathetic to this plan, especially regarding the privacy and DP issue.