Stavros
11-19-2016, 11:21 AM
The Investigative Powers Act -also known as the 'Snooper's Charter'- has passed through the House of Commons and the House of Lords and will become law by the end of 2016 when it receives the Royal Assent.
The Act has been described by The Guardian as
giving the UK intelligence agencies and police the most sweeping surveillance powers in the western world
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/19/extreme-surveillance-becomes-uk-law-with-barely-a-whimper
While artstechnica offers this example of the powers the state now has:
Under what we must soon call the Investigatory Powers Act, "communications service providers"—essentially ISPs and telecoms companies—can and doubtless will be required to create Internet Connection Records (ICRs) for all their users, and to store them for a year. The government factsheet on ICRs (https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/473745/Factsheet-Internet_Connection_Records.pdf) describes them as follows:
Internet connection records are records captured by the network access provider (e.g. the Internet Service Provider or Wi-Fi operator) of the Internet services with which a uniquely identifiable device (e.g. a laptop or mobile phone) interacts.
It will involve retention of a destination IP address but can also include a service name (e.g. Facebook or Google) or a web address (e.g. www.facebook.com or www.google.com) along with a time/date.
It could never contain a full Web address as under the law these would be defined as content.
The website also goes into the centralised software the govt is developing that will enable it to conduct multiple searches across the data, and the other issues involved.
http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2016/11/investigatory-powers-act-privacy-disaster-waiting-to-happen/
Some of these provisions may be challenged in law, but as it stands this is a victory for Theresa May who introduced this Bill into the House when she was Home Secretary, and is an important step forward for the State which believes it should have some power to monitor internet usage by civilians to combat threats such as terrorism and criminal activity.
The Act has been described by The Guardian as
giving the UK intelligence agencies and police the most sweeping surveillance powers in the western world
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/19/extreme-surveillance-becomes-uk-law-with-barely-a-whimper
While artstechnica offers this example of the powers the state now has:
Under what we must soon call the Investigatory Powers Act, "communications service providers"—essentially ISPs and telecoms companies—can and doubtless will be required to create Internet Connection Records (ICRs) for all their users, and to store them for a year. The government factsheet on ICRs (https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/473745/Factsheet-Internet_Connection_Records.pdf) describes them as follows:
Internet connection records are records captured by the network access provider (e.g. the Internet Service Provider or Wi-Fi operator) of the Internet services with which a uniquely identifiable device (e.g. a laptop or mobile phone) interacts.
It will involve retention of a destination IP address but can also include a service name (e.g. Facebook or Google) or a web address (e.g. www.facebook.com or www.google.com) along with a time/date.
It could never contain a full Web address as under the law these would be defined as content.
The website also goes into the centralised software the govt is developing that will enable it to conduct multiple searches across the data, and the other issues involved.
http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2016/11/investigatory-powers-act-privacy-disaster-waiting-to-happen/
Some of these provisions may be challenged in law, but as it stands this is a victory for Theresa May who introduced this Bill into the House when she was Home Secretary, and is an important step forward for the State which believes it should have some power to monitor internet usage by civilians to combat threats such as terrorism and criminal activity.