The U.K. government is proposing changes to the Investigatory Powers Act—often referred to as the snoopers’ charter—extending the reach of the intelligence services.
The King’s Speech Tuesday—which lays out the government’s agenda for the next parliamentary session—announced plans to increase surveillance powers and give the government a potential veto over tech firms’ privacy-enhancing features.
“At a time when threats to national security are changing rapidly due to new technology, my ministers will give the security and intelligence services the powers they need and will strengthen independent judicial oversight,” said King Charles.
The plans include changes to the regime governing bulk personal datasets—the electoral roll, telephone directories and the like—to allow the agencies to make better use of this less sensitive data, which is already widely available to the public. The government claims that the U.K. has less ability to retain and examine bulk personal datasets than its closest allies.
Meanwhile, the oversight regime will be expanded, putting some functions of the Investigatory Powers Commissioner on a statutory basis and enshrining it formally in law.
The notices regime would also be changed, meaning that global tech companies could be forced to get permission from the U.K. government if they want to make changes to security features in their products and services. This, said the government, is necessary to help the U.K. anticipate the risk to public safety caused by these firms rolling out technology that prevents access to data.
It also said it would like to ‘update’ the conditions under which Internet Connections Records can be used, though no details were given, and speed up the processes through which warrants are authorized.
In a statement, the heads of MI5, SIS and GCHQ commented: “The scale and rapidity of technological advances since the IPA was passed in 2016 mean some aspects of the legislation urgently need updating to enable the intelligence agencies to continue to have maximum impact on increasingly complex and diverse threats.”
However, the announcement is not going down well with civil liberties organizations.
“The King’s Speech revealed plans to add yet more spying powers to the Snoopers’ Charter. The government says it will give them the power to veto private tech companies’ privacy and security features. Such powers would be more extreme than even the world’s most despotic regimes,” said Silkie Carlo, director for privacy campaigners Big Brother Watch.
“This would be yet another bill that would exert extraordinary control to treat private companies as extensions of the state in order to conduct mass surveillance of millions of law-abiding citizens. It would be a major blow to the population’s security,” Carlo added.
There’s little detail of what these changes might mean in practice. However, said the Open Rights Group, it’s likely to mean further attacks on end-to-end encryption—a major bugbear of the government.
“End-to-end encryption keeps our data and our communications safe and secure. The proposed reforms to the Investigatory Powers Act are the government’s latest attack on this technology,” said ORG platform power program manager Abigail Burke.
“If enacted, these reforms pose a threat to companies’ ability to keep our data safe and increase the risk of criminal attacks,” she added. “We urge the government to engage with civil society and tech companies, and to reconsider these potentially dangerous proposals.”
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