The government has today published a first draft of the Home Office’s revived Communications Data Bill, which seeks to expand the United Kingdom’s existing internet snooping laws (data retention) and force ISPs into logging a much bigger slice of everybody’s online activity (e.g. Skype access); irrespective of whether or not you’ve committed a crime.

The existing Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) and EU Data Retention Directive already requires broadband providers to maintain a log of their customers internet website and email accesses (times, dates and IP addresses) for 12 months, which does NOT include the content of your communication. The Home Office currently claims to receive half a million requests to intercept communications data every year.

By comparison the new bill (aka – Communications Capabilities Development Programme) has been widely expected to expand this by requiring ISPs to develop real-time access for logs of activity on social networking sites (e.g. Facebook, Twitter), online video games (e.g. World of Warcraft chat logs), Instant Messaging (e.g. MSN) and internet phone services (e.g. Skype).

What does the new bill actually say?

The 123 page long bill itself replaces the dozens of currently available powers with a single piece of legislation and is thus a complex and extensive document that covers many areas. It is “estimated to lead to an increase in public expenditure of up to £1.8 billion over 10 years,” although some recent reports suggested that it might actually run into hundreds of millions, instead of close to the £2bn originally estimated. Regardless the bill itself continues to mention a figure of £1.8bn and anticipates that this will ultimately be outweighed by a benefit of £5bn – £6.2bn over the same period (it’s not clear how that was calculated).

ISPs can apparently expect to be “reimbursed for any costs of complying with [the] legislation“, yet few expect the government to fully honour this commitment. Similarly the government will not require every ISP to maintain the logs and an obligation would only be imposed “after detailed discussion and ministerial sign-off” (i.e. the biggest ISPs, such as BT, will have to comply but smaller ones might escape.. for now). It will be interesting to see whether or not people simply swap to smaller providers (many people already know how to avoid the snooping anyway).

Crucially ISPs can appeal to a technical advisory board under dispute procedures “if they feel requests made of them are unnecessarily onerous,” although in reality most ISPs would be poorly placed to make a judgement about such requests and thus it will be interesting to see whether this makes any tangible difference.

Home Secretary, Theresa May, said:

“Communications data saves lives. It is a vital tool for the police to catch criminals and to protect children.If we stand by as technology changes we will leave police officers fighting crime with one hand tied behind their backs.

Checking communication records, not content, is a crucial part of day-to-day policing and the fingerprinting of the modern age – we are determined to ensure its continued availability in cracking down on crime.”

Restrictions

Theresa May has also been quick to point out that the new bill “will not enable unfettered access by the police to data about everyone’s communications“, require the creation of a new central government database to store all of its data (this idea was dropped three years ago anyway) or “provide the police and others with powers to intercept and read your emails, phone calls or check your contacts lists” (i.e. content of the communication).

Indeed the government are adamant that their bill will NOT “weaken current safeguards or checks in place to protect communications data” or “allow local authorities greater powers“. But clearly not everybody agrees.

ISPAs Secretary General, Nicholas Lansman, said:

“ISPA has concerns about the new powers to require network operators to capture and retain third party communications data. These concerns include the scope and proportionality, privacy and data protection implications and the technical feasibility.

Whilst we appreciate that technological developments mean that Government is looking again at its communications data capabilities, it is important that powers are clear and contain sufficient safeguards.

We welcome the additional scrutiny the Bill will face in parliament and we will be seeking to address our key points during this process. ISPA will be working closely with its members over the coming months to ensure that the full breadth and range of industry is heard. We want to ensure that the proposals are clear, proportionate and fit for purpose.”

Jim Killock, Executive Director of Open Rights Group, said:

“The government’s notes confirm that this is exactly what we expected: black boxes to intercept people’s traffic data, and poorly supervised police powers to get access to it.

Bluntly these are as dangerous as we expected, and represent unprecedented surveillance powers in the democratic world. China and Iran will be delighted.”

Source: http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php...oping-law.html