Details of Investigatory Powers Bill unveiled

Details of the proposed Investigatory Powers Bill have been revealed, which would grant additional powers for security and intelligence services to intercept communications data.

Under the proposed Bill, internet providers will be required to store details of every website its customers visit over the previous 12 months. Messaging services that use end to end encryption will also be required to have the capability to decrypt the data held on devices and pass it over to intelligence services if requested to.

The Bill will replace the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa), which is now fifteen years old and was drawn up before messaging services such as WhatsApp and social media sites such as Twitter existed.

The draft powers will for the first time put the bulk-collection powers of the security and intelligence services into comprehensive legislation. Under the proposed plans, the Government Communications Headquarters’ will also have the license to hack into computers worldwide, including mobile devices and smartphones.

Additionally, an investigatory powers commissioner will also be introduced to strengthen oversight of Britain’s surveillance.

The Bill has faced criticism, being dubbed the ‘snooper’s charter’, due to privacy concerns. The government has tried to assuage these concerns, stressing that the powers are needed to combat terrorism and online crime, and will not be used to snoop on people’s online activity.

The data stored will consist of basic domains and not full browsing history of search terms or pages within that site. Additionally, police will need judicial authorisation before they can access the records. A new offence will be introduced, to target public authorities who inappropriately access people’s records, which could result in a two year prison sentence and local authorities will be banned from accessing web histories.

Mike Weston, CEO of data science consultancy Profusion, has criticised the Bill. He said: “The Investigatory Powers Bill is a very concerning piece of legislation for both the tech industry and consumers. Limiting what encryption can be used is a victory for the security services, hackers and companies intent on misusing personal data. Not a week goes by when it isn’t made readily apparent that the protection currently afforded to personal data is inadequate. Seeking to limit what companies can do to encrypt data is a stunningly short-sighted approach.”

“The one saving grace is that technology moves to quickly that many of the rules that will be agreed in the Investigatory Powers Bill will probably be obsolete in a few years.”

However, Prime Minister David Cameron has stressed that criminal’s should not have a safe place to hide online. He said: “As Prime Minister I would just say to people ‘please, let's not have a situation where we give terrorists, criminals, child abductors, safe spaces to communicate.

“It's not a safe space for them to communicate on a fixed line telephone or a mobile phone, we shouldn't allow the internet to be a safe space for them to communicate and do bad things.”

Mayor of London Boris Johnson has also voiced some concerns over the Bill, but feels it is necessary as long as the proper controls are in place. He said: "It is defensible [access to people's internet history] if and only it is supervised by a judge. You can't have junior police officers trawling people's websites as a tool of oppression.

"I have become fairly tough on this. If you run a great City like this which is the object of all sorts of threats you have got to have a way of checking up on them.

"Everybody knows now that a lot of police work is brought to a successful conclusion thanks to the ability to use electronic data. I have moved my position to thinking you have got to give the security services the ability to check this stuff."