The United Kingdom government is set to introduce the radical new plans as part of its Investigatory Powers Bill.
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“In terms of meta data, the powers will be much as they are now but with strength and scrutiny”.
She has argued for similar rules to those governing phone records – which can be accessed without a ministerial warrant – for online communications. “It is simply the modern equivalent of an itemised phone bill”, May added.
And good news for journalists: the bill would put into statute a “requirement for all applications for all applications to access the communications data for the goal of identifying or confirming the identity of a journalist’s source to be authorised by a Judicial Commissioner”. A spokeswoman said on Tuesday Prime Minister David Cameron saw the bill as “one of the most important pieces of legislation during this parliament because it goes…to the heart of the government’s duty to keep the British public safe”.
Critics will call this a snooper’s charter – but security chiefs and police say they’re not interested in your online shopping habits – only the habits of serious threats to society.
The net browsing history of each and every individual in the united kingdom will soon be recorded under new laws being pronounced by the Home Secretary after, for a year. However, the Police can only check which websites you’re visiting but in order to read what you’re reading, they’ll need a warrant.
The bill will give intelligence agencies the power to access a year’s worth of websites visited without court approval.
Other measures that may be included in the proposed legislation include increased legal hacking powers for security services, increased data retention, and also whether politicians or judges should sign warrants to approve surveillance.
The bill is meant to upgrade the UK’s anti-terrorism measures, to address alleged surveillance gaps the government believes are “severely degrading” intelligence agencies’ ability to fight terrorists.
For example, local authorities will be banned from accessing ICRs for any goal.
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It (Other OTC: ITGL – news) says another safeguard will be the introduction of a new offence of misusing the data, carrying a two-year prison sentence. 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.
