Internet privacy as important as human rights, says UN's Navi Pillay

Navi Pillay compares uproar over mass surveillance to response that helped defeat apartheid during Today programme

Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Navi Pillay, during a press conference in Geneva earlier this month. Photograph: Martial Trezzini/AP

The UN human rights chief, Navi Pillay, has compared the uproar in the international community caused by revelations of mass surveillance with the collective response that helped bring down the apartheid regime in South Africa.

Pillay, the first non-white woman to serve as a high-court judge in South Africa, made the comments in an interview with Sir Tim Berners-Lee on a special edition of BBC Radio 4's Today programme, which the inventor of the world wide web was guest editing.

Pillay has been asked by the UN to prepare a report on protection of the right to privacy, in the wake of the former National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden leaking classified documents about UK and US spying and the collection of personal data.

The former international criminal court judge said her encounters with serious human rights abuses, which included serving on the Rwanda tribunal, did not make her take online privacy less seriously. "I don't grade human rights," she said. "I feel I have to look after and promote the rights of all persons. I'm not put off by the lifetime experience of violations I have seen."

She said apartheid ended in South Africa principally because the international community co-operated to denounce it, adding: "Combined and collective action by everybody can end serious violations of human rights … That experience inspires me to go on and address the issue ofinternet [privacy], which right now is extremely troubling because the revelations of surveillance have implications for human rights … People are really afraid that all their personal details are being used in violation of traditional national protections."

The UN general assembly unanimously voted last week to adopt a resolution, introduced by Germany and Brazil, stating that "the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online, including the right to privacy". Brazil's president, Dilma Rousseff, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, were among those spied on, according to the documents leaked by Snowden.

The resolution called on the 193 UN member states "to review their procedures, practices and legislation regarding the surveillance of communications, their interception and collection of personal data, with a view to upholding the right to privacy of all their obligations under international human rights law". It also directed Pillay to publish a report on the protection and promotion of privacy "in the context of domestic and extraterritorial surveillance ... including on a mass scale". She told Berners-Lee it was "very important that governments now want to discuss the matters of mass surveillance and right to privacy in a serious way".

Berners-Lee has warned that online surveillance undermines confidence in the internet, and last week published an open letter, with more than 100 free speech groups and leading activists, to protest against the routine interception of data by governments around the world

Oklahoma’s drones – the next generation

As 24 states await a key drone sites announcement from the FAA, Oklahoma has a wide range of crafts in development

An equivalent model of the Raptr is already being used by police in Arlington, Texas. Photograph: Guardian

The Federal Aviation Authority will soon announce the six states that it has chosen as the hosts of the official drone test sites that within a couple of years will provide a “road map" to drone participation in civilian life. In Oklahoma, a wide range of crafts are in development.

The Raptr (Remote Aerial Platform / Tactical Reconnaissance)

Fully autonomous unmanned helicopter that can carry up to its own weight – 15lbs – in thermal imaging sensors and camera equipment. Performs in snow, rain and winds of up to 40 knots. Electric motor reduces noise for surveillance and keeps it airborne for up to 40 minutes.

Full military-grade autopilot allows the Raptr to be pre-programmed to fly to hundreds of points on a map within a range of 10 miles under its own control.

• Uses: police and military surveillance, fire fighting, precision agriculture, pipeline maintenance etc. Equivalent model already being used by police in Arlington, Texas
• Produced by: Tactical Electronics.
• Cost: $50,000 to $200,000, depending on package of sensors and other specialised equipment.

PMAW-MK4

The PMAW-MK4. Photograph: The Guardian

The PMAW (pronounced “P More”) isn’t your typical drone – developed in 2011 by a public-private partnership on behalf of the US military, it’s shaped not like its manned predecessors, but like an owl. The Army wanted the drone to mimic the shape of a bird of prey for added stealth; the developers chose an owl as the bird is found in every continent, and only the paint scheme would need to be changed to make it suitable for differening terrains. The plumed wings and fanned tail also add aerodynamic benefits.

• Produced by: Design Intelligence Incorporated, in conjunction with students from Oklahoma State University.
• Cost: not available commercially.

Hexelectric 550 'Hexcopter'

The Hexcopter. Photograph: Theguardian.com

As its name implies, the Hexcopter has six rotor blades that provide stability as it flies. Though light at 5lbs and small at about 20 inches in diameter, it is built to be rugged, with an aluminium frame that can resist high temperatures. It carries a high-definition camera that sees 360 degress around itself and allows fire chiefs to see above and in front of wild fires – intelligence that can help them contain the fire, and save lives.

• Uses: designed for use by firefighters and other public services to provide advance information on wild fires and other emergency situations.
• Produced by: Frontier Electronic Systems.
• Cost: $12,000 including case, control systems and support.

Flanker

The Flanker. Photograph: theguardian.com

Ultra-light foam aircraft that weighs only 4 lbs but has an 84-inch wingspan and can fly for more than two hours. It is called the “Flanker” as it is designed to fly along the flanks of a fire or law enforcement situation, sending back thermal imaging and high-definition video to help locate individuals and buildings.

• Uses: fire-fighting and police surveillance. Already being used in Possum Kingdom, Texas for search and rescue. US military also planning to use it for surveillance.
• Produced by: Fireflight UAS.
• Cost: $11,000- $15,000 including ground station with monitor to receive real-time images and data

Eturnas

Solar cells built into its extra long wingspan – up to 10ft – allow the Eturnas to operate all day long in good sunlight conditions. Weighing only 9lbs, it can be folded up for easy transport into a 20-inch by 30-inch box.

• Uses: ability to fly long distances and for many hours at a time makes it suitable for wildfire, livestock or biological surveys across open spaces, for example delivering medicines or keeping an eye on sheep flocks in the Australian outback. Also suitable for checking for faults along energy pipelines.
• Produced by: currently in development by Design Intelligence Incorporated.
• Cost: not yet announced.

• This article was corrected on Thursday, December 26 2013. It previously stated that the Eturnas had been commissioned by the US military as a surveillance tool. 

Tech 128: From Airbnb to crowdfunding, the year in review

Part one of our list of everything you'll need to remember about 2013, including the rise of bitcoin and demise of Blackberry

2014 has been the year of Bitcoin Photograph: Ted Soqui/Corbis

How many highlights of 2013 can you remember? The Guardian's Technology team think 128 is a pretty good number, so we've picked the highs, lows and huhs of the entire year and distilled them into a handy list form.

It only took us three very intense weeks of negotiation and some minor fisticuffs, but we've managed to plot out everything we think 2013 will be remembered for, and we'll be publishing them across eight lists every day until 1 January.

Airbnb

Fast becoming the default way to travel, Airbnb opened up a whole new holiday market for international hipsters – with only a small amount of controversy about encouraging sub-letters to escape tax. Also notorious for being the startup model every aspiring entrepreneurs wants to aim for: "We're like Airbnb for the [insert name of industry here]".

• Three million people stayed in Airbnb-booked accommodation in 2012

Amazon Prime Air

When Amazon announced that it was planning to deliver packages via drone by 2018, the press went wild. Even the airtime it was given for the announcement – a 15 minute slot on CBS's 60 Minutes – would cost over $3m if bought as advertising. So it's not surprising they pre-announced it. The question is: will they be able to live up to their promise? The answer, probably, is no.

• Video: Drone helicopter delivery to your door in 30 minutes

Andy Rubin

Google's Andy Rubin is now leading the company's robotics projects. Photograph: Joi Ito/flickr

Rubin made his name as the head of Google's Android division, but in March 2013 he stepped down from the role, having built the company up into the mobile behemoth it is today. His new job, quietly gathering steam over the year, is leading Google's robotics initiative. Over 2013, Google acquired eight robotics companies, and Rubin says the company has a "10-year vision" for where the project will take it.

• In April Google's chief executive Larry Page nearly let slip that Rubin was starting on 'a new chapter' in robotics...

Ask.fm

The Q&A site was little known outside teen circles at the start of the year, but faced intense scrutiny over its user policies after a spate of teenage suicides linked the site to cyberbullying. 

• Ask.fm pledged new safety features in response, including new moderators to be recruited by January

Beyoncé

Beyonce took the music world by surprise by releasing her new album on iTunes. Photograph: Robin Harper/Invision/AP

When Queen Bey dropped her new self-titled album with no advance publicity, the internet went wild. Obviously not every artist can expect a surprise release to have quite the same effect; one particularly cruel joke went, "Beyoncé is so unoriginal, the other members of Destiny's Child release albums no-one knows about all the time."

But there's no doubt that she single-handedly made the case that buying music isn't dead yet, when in just three days her iTunes-exclusive album sold 829,000 copies worldwide.

• 'I didn't want to release my music in the way I've done it. I'm bored with that," Beyonce said

Big data

The term "big data" might have been overcooked by the corporates and marketeers, but it's still a powerful trend. Whether big business or the intelligence agencies, there has never been more usefulness, more value or more awareness about the data trails our digital lives create. Even the CIA's own website states it loud and clear: "Big Data is a Big Deal at the CIA."

• What exactly is a data scientist, and what do they do?

Binge-watching TV

The rise of streaming websites has created a new legal way of watching TV: watching entire series in one go. Netflix accelerated this new trend, famously releasing original series such as House of Cards and Orange is the New Black, in one go. Netflix recently studied viewers that watched an entire series in one month and found that 50% of them finished an entire season within a week.

• I just binged on ten hours of TV

Bitcoin

At the beginning of 2013, one bitcoin could be bought for $13. At its peak in November, that same bitcoin could have been sold for nearly a hundred times that, $1,242. That astonishing increase in value isn't the whole reason why the decentralised crypto-currency has made headlines across the world, but it doesn't hurt.

A bitcoin has no physical counterpart. Instead, just like a £5-note is technically a "promise to pay the bearer the sum of five pounds", a bitcoin is a digitally signed public contract asserting that one user is giving another bitcoins. That lets the currency operate without any central authority certifying transactions, which gave it credibility in the techno-libertarian circles it arose from.

Over the course of this year, bitcoin has been used to buy drugs on the Silk Road and evade currency controls in Cyprus and China. It has gone to space, and filled shipping containers in Hong Kong. One early adopter bought a house with bitcoin he'd paid $27 for, while another lost a hard-drive with over £4m worth of it on. And at the end of it all, it's on a downward streak that might just kill it any way.

• Nine other alternative currencies

Blackberry

The phone once beloved of the email-addicted and workaholics – including President Obama - couldn't stem the decline as it failed to compete with touchscreen rivals. Blackberry's much hyped Z10 flopped, costing the company $935m. The end of the fixed keyboard era is upon us. 

• Why Blackberry failed

Bloom.fm

Reportedly upping the pressure on Spotify, the music app Bloom.fm has exploited the demand for streamed music and Pandora's failure to launch in the UK. Undercutting Spotify by charging just £1 per month for ad-free streamed music, Bloom.fm is rapidly building its userbase. One to watch.

• Bloom.fm review - intriguing and different 

Burberry

Burberry at London Fashion Week 2013. Photograph: Ian Gavan/Getty Images

Under the direction of Christopher Bailey, the British label led a new wave of tech-savvy fashionistas who finally showed the confidence and skill to make technology work for them. From London's fashion startups cluster and the Decoded fashion tech events to 3D printed clothes, Apple's iPhone 5S Burberry deal and Instagramming on the front row, tech is set to be a wardrobe staple.

• Fashion was 'scared of digital', said Topshop former marketing head Justin Cooke

Chelsea Manning

In August the whistleblower was sentenced to 35 years for passing 700,000 military documents to Wikileaks. A hero to many for her courage in speaking out, her sentence was condemned by many civil rights groups including Ben Wizner, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Speech, Privacy & Technology Project.

"This is a sad day for Bradley Manning, but it's also a sad day for all Americans who depend on brave whistleblowers and a free press for a fully informed public debate," he said. 

"When a soldier who shared information with the press and public is punished far more harshly than others who tortured prisoners and killed civilians, something is seriously wrong with our justice system ... it will deprive the public of critical information that is necessary for democratic accountability."

• A row broke out at Wikipedia over whether to label the page as Chelsea or Bradley Manning

Citymapper

It's like a navigation app – only far, far better. Citymapper's evangelical fans rave about its features, which include live status information for public transport, bike routes and jet pack travel times, just for amusement. Only for London and New York, for now – but world domination is only a matter of time. 

• Citymapper first popped up at Seedcamp in 2011

Clash of Clans

Finland's uber-cool games company Supercell is small but took investment this year valuing it at $3bn. Whatever its secrets (recruiting the industry's best talent and rewarding them handsomely) the strategy worked for its standout game, Clash of Clans, which was the highest grossing game app of 2013.

• Fun games 'can't be created on a spreadsheet', say Supercell

Clumsy Ninja

Previewed during the iPhone 5 launch, the game app became the most addictive of the year and demonstrated some astonishing physics-based movements to boot.

• The best 50 apps of 2013

Crowdfunding

From smartwatches to 3D printers and indie films, crowdfunding has cemented itself as a barometer of consumer appetite and interests, with Kickstarter, Indiegogo and others launching tens of thousands of creative, technological and humanitarian projects onto the world – and killing the dreams of millions more.

Eleven things you didn't know about Apple

From the design team's obsession with unboxing to satanic pricing and the world's most unlikely mullet, there is more to Apple than meets the eye

Interesting facts about Apple you may not know. Photograph: imagebroker/Alamy

The company behind the ubiquitous iPhone and iPad is famously secretive, but there a few little known facts about the California-based company.

1 Steve Jobs was adopted and half Syrian

Steve Jobs was adopted and was half Syrian. Photograph: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Apple’s legendary co-founder and chief executive died in October 2011, but while heading up the company Steve Jobs revealed that he was actually adopted and half Syrian. His biological parents, Joanne Schieble and Syrian immigrant Abdulfattah Jandali met as 23-year-old students at the University of Wisconsin.

Jobs was put up for adoption in 1955, through pressure from Schieble’s parents. Schieble and Jandali later married and had a daughter, Jobs’ biological sister.

2 Apple’s first computer was satanically priced

The Apple-1 cost $666.66 as Steve Wozniak was apparently fond of repeating digits. Photograph: Tony Avelar/EPA

Apple’s first computer, the Apple I, was priced at $666.66. Steve Wozniak apparently priced it without realising that the triple-six configuration had Satanic connotations, instead pricing it at one-third over the wholesale price of $500, and preferring one repeating digit over 667 because it was "easier to type".

3 Apple ships everything by air, not sea

Apple is Cathay Pacific's biggest freight customer. Photograph: Christopher Thomond

Apple is Cathay Pacific’s biggest freight customer, as it prefers to move most of its stock by air instead of boat. The benefit is being able to move stock quickly rather than cheaply, with stock moved from China to the US in 15 hours instead of 30 days. It means that less money is tied up in stock (normally on credit) before it can be sold on.

It also means that phones, tablets and computers all worth in excess of £500 each are not sitting in a container at sea which might sink or get hijacked. 

4 A Macintosh is an apple variety

The Macintosh computer was named after Apple, as you might expect. Photograph: DPA/Press Association Images

The Apple Macintosh is so called because the macintosh was Jef Raskin’s favourite variety of Apple.

At the time it was just a codename, which Steve Jobs reportedly tried to change to “bicycle” while Raskin was out of the office, but Macintosh stuck until the end of product development and made it onto the box.

5 Apple’s hero shots aren’t computer generated

Apple's product shots look computer generated, but are actually hundreds, if not thousands, of real photos stitched together

The big, glossy super-high-resolution photos of Apple’s latest products in adverts and on its site are not computer generated. Instead, they are a painstaking blend of hundreds of high resolution, super-close up photos all with narrow depths of field.

The individual images are stitched together, in a similar way to high dynamic range photography which blends photos with different exposures, into one massive, ultra-high-resolution image entirely in focus.

6 Steve Wozniak is still an Apple employee

Steve Wozniak, Apple co-founder, is still an Apple employee. Photograph: David Paul Morris/Getty Images

Apple co-founder Steve “Woz” Wozniak set up the company in 1976 with Steve Jobs in his garage. He no longer actively works for Apple, but is still officially an Apple employee and receives a stipend estimated to be worth $120,000 a year.

7 Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow

Steve Jobs' sister said that death didn't just happen to her brother, but that Jobs had 'achieved death'. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Steve Jobs’ last words were "Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow" while looking over the shoulders of his family, according to his sister Mona Simpson, who allowed the eulogy she gave at Jobs‘ memorial service to be published in the New York Times.

8 Apple had three founders

Ronald Wayne was the little-known third co-founder of Apple, missing from this iconic photo. Photograph: DB Apple/DPA/Press Association Images

Apple was founded in 1976 by three people, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne.

Ronald drew the first Apple logo, wrote the original partnership agreement and the Apple I computer manual, but sold his 10% stake two weeks in for just $800 because of concerns over debt.

That same stake would have been worth over $35bn today.

9 Thank Ive for the white iPod

Sir Jony Ive was the man behind the iconic white coloured Apple products like the iPod. Photograph: David Levene

Steve Jobs was opposed to the idea of white products initially, but was convinced to use white as Apple’s primary colour for its products by Apple’s designer Sir Jony Ive.

In Ive’s recent biography, former Apple designer Doug Satzger has said that Jobs was only won over by white when shown a different shade called “moon grey”.

Ive’s love for white originated long before he joined Apple, right back to the work he produced while still a design student at Newcastle.

10 Packaging obsession

Apple's obsessive attention to detail extends to packaging. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Apple pays as much attention to its packaging as it does to its products. So much so, that it has a dedicated secret packaging room within its headquarters in Cupertino, California.

Packaging designers spend countless hours opening boxes within this special room, attempting to elicit the correct emotional response in customers opening new products for the first time. In his book, Inside Apple, Adam Lashinsky describes the level of obsession and attention to detail Apple commits to packaging:

“One after another, the designer created and tested an endless series of arrows, colours, and tapes for a tiny tab designed to show the consumer where to pull back the invisible, full-bleed sticker adhered to the top of the clear iPod box. Getting it just right was this particular designer's obsession.”

11 Balls

In his recent unauthorised biography of Jony Ive, author Leander Kahney included a photo of an iMac G4 inside its box. The stem connecting the screen to the domed base is encased in polystyrene, with the two ball-shaped speakers carefully and very deliberately placed either side of the shaft. The idea of arranging them to look like male genitals was apparently the idea of the design team.

For good measure, the book also features a high school photo of Ive, arguably the world's most famous designer and tastemaker, with a very impressive mullet.

US and Canada: tens of thousands still without power after winter storm

Officials warned that some in Canada, Maine and Michigan might not get their power back for at least another day

Canada, Maine and Michigan residents lost power in a severe weekend winter storm which has been linked to 27 deaths. Photograph: Angelika Cox /Demotix /Corbis

Officials warned on Thursday that some of the more than half a million homes in Canada, Maine and Michigan that lost power in a severe weekend winter storm might not get their power back for at least another day.

Utility crews worked overnight in the hardest hit regions, with assistance from utilities workers from areas unaffected by the storm. On Thursday morning, more than 101,000 homes in Canada were still without power. Officials said on Thursday that in Michigan, 105,000 homes were also without power and in Maine, 36,000 homes.

The storm is linked to at least 27 deaths; 17 in the US and 10 in Canada. At least eight people were killed by the carbon monoxide gas given off from gasoline-powered generators, and more were taken to hospitals with carbon monoxide poisoning. Utilities companies and state officials warned consumers to not use generators indoors and to look out for symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning. 

Three Canadian provinces experienced power outages – Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick. At the height of the outages, 300,000 customers in Toronto lost power, though that number was down to 54,000 on Thursday morning.

Toronto Hydro said approximately 82% of its customers had power back on Thursday morning, though some customers said they lost power again shortly after getting it back. This could be caused by crews working in the area and falling trees, according to a spokesperson for Toronto Hydro.

About 105,000 homes in Michigan were still without power on Thursday morning, down from the more than 500,000 homes were without power at the storm’s peak. CMS Energy Corp enlisted help from its offices in the eastern US to restore power quickly, but said some customers may have to wait until Saturday to get power back.

DTE Energy in Michigan said it expects most power to be restored to its customers on Thursday. Crews had restored power to 92% of its customers on Thursday morning, but warned that the weather conditions could hinder recovery.

“Frigid temperatures, snow and higher velocity winds today are making restoration work more challenging, and new power outages have occurred as ice continues to put weight on power lines and tree branches,” according to a DTE Energy update.

State authorities in Maine and Vermont said this is the worst storm to hit the region since 1998. More than 100,000 homes in Maine were without power at the storm’s peak.

Maine utilities companies estimated that some customers will not have power back on Friday, though Central Maine Power said that power could be restored by the end of the day for most of its 24,000 customers still without power.

"We've had two beautiful, sunny days in Maine and the ice isn't going anyplace," Lynette Miller, a spokeswoman for the Maine Emergency Management Agency, told the AP. "They're very concerned about more weight coming down on trees that are already compromised by ice."

Suspected US drone strike kills 'three foreign militants'

Drone fired two missiles at a home in a northwestern tribal region of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan, Pakistani officials said

Activists of Jamaat-e-Islami gather on a road to block Nato supplies to Afghanistan during a protest on the outskirts of Quetta. Photo: Banaras Khan /AF/Getty

A suspected American drone fired two missiles at a home in a northwestern tribal region of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan, killing at least three foreign militants, Pakistani intelligence officials said Thursday.

The US authorities often target Taliban, al-Qaida and their Pakistani supporters in the country's tribal regions.

The latest strike took place just before midnight Wednesday in the village of Qutab Khel in North Waziristan and initial reports gathered from their agents in the field suggested the slain men were Arabs, the two intelligence officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

The American drone program is extremely unpopular in Pakistan because it is perceived as killing innocent civilians, which the US denies. Many in Pakistan also consider it an affront to their sovereignty but the US has shown no indication it is willing to halt the program.

Angered over the strikes, supporters from cricket star-turned politician Imran Khan's Tehreek-e-Insaf party in the northwest have been protesting along a main road used to truck NATO troop supplies in and out of Afghanistan for the past month, forcing the US to stop shipments out of Afghanistan.

Khan has urged the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to force the US to end drone attacks and block NATO supplies across the country.

On Thursday, about 150 supporters from Khan's party on the outskirts of the southwestern city of Quetta briefly blocked trucks carrying supplies for NATO forces heading toward Afghanistan, said a senior police official Abdul Rauf. But he said police ordered them to allow the trucks to proceed.

Trucks carrying NATO supplies pass through Quetta, the capital of southwestern Baluchistan province, before going through the Chaman border crossing – one of two routes used for supplies. The other route is further north.

"We briefly stopped some of the NATO trucks this morning, but now we are just holding a peaceful rally against the drone attacks," said Abdul Wali Shakir, a spokesman for the Jamaat-e-Islami party, which also attended the rally, demanding an end to the drone strikes.

Drone strikes have been a source of tension between Islamabad and Washington.

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry condemned the latest strike in a statement Thursday, saying such attacks were a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty and territorial integrity. "There is an across-the-board consensus in Pakistan that these drone strikes must end," it said.

"Such strikes also set dangerous precedents in the inter-state relations," it said, adding the strikes had a negative impact on the government's efforts to bring peace and stability in Pakistan and the region.

Islamabad and the country's political parties regularly denounce the attacks as a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty, although the country's government is known to have supported some of the strikes in the past. The tension has further complicated a relationship that Washington views as vital to fight al-Qaida and the Taliban, as well as negotiate peace in Afghanistan.

The land routes through Pakistan from the southern port city of Karachi have been key to getting supplies to NATO troops in Afghanistan. They now increasingly are being used to ship equipment out of Afghanistan as the US seeks to withdraw most of its troops from the country by the end of 2014.

Lending to small businesses receives boost

Government hopes plan will lead to an increase lending to businesses in deprived areas

The government is consulting on new rules for sharing small and medium enterprise (SME) credit data. Photograph: Rana Faure/Corbis

New "challenger" banks will find it easier to check the credit-worthiness of potential business customers under new proposals published by the government , which it hopes will lead to an increase in lending to businesses in deprived areas.

The government is consulting on new rules for sharing small and medium enterprise (SME) credit data, with the aim of making it easier for challenger banks and alternative finance providers to enter the market and provide credit. Banks will be required to share SME credit data through credit reference agencies.

At the moment, the big-four high-street banks control 85% of SME lending. Improved access to credit data through greater competition and innovation in SME lending should improve the cost and quality of services offered.

The move comes as – after pressure from the Co-operative party – aLabour policy review looks at proposals to force banks to publish their lending data down to postcode level and to expand community finance.

Labour has been looking at the US example of banking disclosure and community lending requirements under its community reinvestment act and the home mortgage disclosure act. These laws, expanded under Barack Obama to include business lending, force American banks to disclose what, where and how they lend and force the bigger banks to lend in areas of deprivation and poverty using community banks or credit unions if they wouldn't do it themselves.

Examples of community banks, or Community Development Finance Institutions, as they are officially known in the UK, include Five Lamps, which provides personal and business loans as well as training and advice in north-east England, and the Black Country Reinvestment Society, which provides access to finance for social enterprises and SMEs in the West Midlands.

The government has agreed a voluntary deal with some of the banks to publish some information on their lending. From January 2014, the UK's seven biggest lenders will make quarterly releases showing the outstanding stock of lending committed to customers across loans and overdrafts to SMEs, mortgages and unsecured personal loans. The British Bankers' Association will release aggregated data for the seven participants.

A number of bodies, including the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition Commission, have all highlighted a lack of information about the creditworthiness of SMEs, as well as details about where banks are willing to lend.

Treasury financial secretary Sajid Javid said: "The government is determined to build a banking system that supports Britain's economy and its small and medium sized businesses.

"The best way to deliver this is to increase competition in the sector and remove the barriers to new sources of finance for SMEs. Requiring banks to share data is an important part of creating a more level playing field that will enable more providers to enter the market."

The government said it intended to bring forward legislation on SMEs in the next session of parliament.