A new law is trying to amend the way the UK government deals with the internet activity of its citizens. The wide-ranging Investigatory Powers Bill basically says that Internet service providers must now store the data of its citizens. But it does not end there.
ISP's will be mandated by law to store the websites that UK citizens visit for a year if the law is approved. Though the specific sites will be masked, the records will show the domains that each citizen checks out.
This data that ISPs will be storing will be freely available to police and intelligence officers without any need for a warrant. More specific and intrusive surveillance will still require a warrant.
What the law does provide is a panel of 10 or more judges reviewing and approving warrants that will grant security services the go signal to hack suspected criminals. At the moment, it is only the home secretary and senior ministers who have this power.
It must be noted that the GCHQ had gathered 1.1 trillion pieces of information in less than two years. The debate of whether bulk collection is actually helpful or just a gross invasion of privacy is still raging on.
BBC reported on other areas that the new bill will touch on:
- The panel of judges can block spying operations by the home secretary
- A new criminal offense for "knowingly or recklessly obtaining communications data from a telecommunications operator without lawful authority" with a two year prison sentence.
- Local councils will retain certain investigatory powers like surveillance of benefit cheats, but will not have access to the ISP's data.
- The Wilson doctrine or the prevention of surveillance on Parliamentarians' communications to be made law.
- Legal duty of ISP's to comply with security services in hacking devices to acquire information.
- The former Appeal Court judge Sir Stanley Burnton to be appointed the new interception of communications commissioner.
The Next Web can be quoted in saying, "To be clear, storing your browsing history is indeed an invasion of privacy. Another major issue with the bill is it requires more mass surveillance data to be stored than before, which presents opportunities for said data to be misused, misconstrued and stolen."
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