WBack in 2000, the Investigatory Powers Regulation Bill was introduced by the Blair government, which enshrined formidable surveillance powers into law. Long before Edward Snowden revealed his secrets, it was clear to those paying attention that the British deep state was gearing up for the digital age. The powers implicit in this bill were so broad that some expected it to pass the House with a bang.
However, the majority of MPs surveyed didn’t seem interested in the bill. Only a handful of his 659 elected members seemed concerned at all about what was being proposed. Most of the work to improve bills as they pass through Parliament is done by a small number of members of the House of Lords, some of them hereditary members, rather than elected members. It was eventually revised and became law (nicknamed Ripa) in July 2000.
In 2014, the government commissioned David Anderson QC (now KC) to investigate its operation and recommended that new legislation be enacted to clarify the questions Ripa raises. Home Secretary Theresa May introduced a new investigatory powers bill in the House of Commons in 2015, which was scrutinized by a joint committee of the Lords and the House of Commons. This bill became the Investigatory Powers Act (or “Peep Charter”) in November 2016. The following month, the European Court of Justice ruled that the general retention of information legalized by the law was unlawful.
In 2022, the Home Office conducted a review of how the act worked. It concluded that the law had “largely achieved its objectives” but that further significant reforms were needed “to take into account advances in technology and the evolving demands of protecting national security and tackling serious crime.” Spies needed legislative support and more formally sanctioned wiggle room.
The Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill is currently before the Lords of Westminster. “The world has changed,” the blurb says. “Technology is advancing rapidly and the types of threats the UK faces continue to evolve.” It aims to enable security and intelligence agencies to respond to a range of evolving threats. And of course, this is global Britain, so “world-leading safeguards within the IPA will be maintained and strengthened”.
Upon closer inspection, the bill should give security services more latitude in building and leveraging so-called “mass datasets of personal information” and collecting and using CCTV footage and facial images. The bill also allows for the “collection and processing of Internet connection records” for generalized mass surveillance.
The bill will force technology companies, including overseas bases, to inform the UK Government of any plans that may require improving security or privacy measures on their platform before these changes take effect. For instance, Apple views this as an “unprecedented overreach by the government” that could see the UK “covertly veto new user protections globally and prevent us from delivering them to our customers”.
A hat-trick, at least for global Britain.
what i am reading
intestinal level
Cory Doctorow’s Marshall McLuhan Lecture on enshift, or the way digital platforms tend to deteriorate. A record of an event you’ll never forget.
X factor
a great blog post written by Charles Arthur, former technology editor guardian. Summary: Think before you tweet. Or maybe you should just quit.
Apocalypse again
a solemn politiko column Jac Schaefer on the recent wave of layoffs in American news organizations.
Source: www.theguardian.com
