Britain's internet history law: A new frontier of surveillance?

After months of debate, the British Parliament has passed a controversial law that gives authorities – from police to food regulators, fire officials, and tax inspectors – powers to look at the internet browsing records of everyone in the country. 

|
Alastair Grant/AP
This photo illustration shows the web flash pages for GCHQ, the British governments communications and electronic surveillance headquarters, and The Security Service (MI5), the government's internal security service, on a computer and smartphone in London, Friday, Nov. 25, 2016.

Britain’s new internet law has critics concerned that the government prioritized security over privacy, and ended up compromising both. Some are also concerned about the potential for enhanced surveillance worldwide.

The Investigatory Powers Bill 2016 received royal assent on Tuesday and takes effect immediately. One particularly controversial part of the law requires internet service providers (ISPs) to create a database to track which websites Britons visit and how long they spend on these sites, then retain the data for one year. During that time, a range of agencies – from the police to the Department for Work and Pensions – will be able to access the database. 

Other provisions create a legal avenue for surveillance activities the government is already carrying out, like identifying a journalist’s source or hacking a smartphone to see a target’s messages.

This law is the latest in an ongoing global debate over digital security and privacy. Until now, say experts, privacy has largely won out – though the British government’s concern about cyber and terrorist attacks, which Home Secretary Amber Rudd described as the reasoning behind the law, may be a sign of shifting attitudes.

Critics say members of Parliament (MPs) did not comprehend the privacy implications of the Investigatory Powers Bill, nor the security risks it poses.

“MPs were asked to review an incredibly complex bill … in a tight timescale while other seismic political events were unfolding around them,” Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, explained to the BBC, referring to the Brexit debate that has dominated the British political landscape over the past year.

“The fact that most MPs are not technologists likely also played a role – they may simply not have understood just how intrusive the laws they were considering were.”

The bill was first introduced in May 2015 as a replacement to the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014, which expires next month. It passed the upper chamber of Parliament, the House of Lords, earlier in November. 

James Blessing, who chairs the Internet Service Providers Association, told the BBC that similar legislation has been repeatedly introduced since 2007. In the past, however, privacy activists have persuaded MPs to defeat the bills.

The Investigatory Powers Bill is intended to protect Britain from threats, according to the home secretary.

“At a time of heightened security threat, it is essential our law enforcement, security and intelligence services have the powers they need to keep people safe,” Secretary Rudd said, adding that the internet “presents new opportunities for terrorists” that the country must now address.

The bill may not reflect public opinion. A petition opposing the bill garnered over 130,000 signatures, which now requires Parliament to debate the issue again, even if only briefly. And rights groups have been outspoken in opposing the measure.

“[These measures] open every detail of every citizen’s online life up to state eyes, drowning the authorities in data and putting innocent people’s personal information at massive risk,” said Bella Sankey, policy director of civil liberties and human rights organization Liberty. Critics have suggested that the database will be a target of increasingly sophisticated hackers.

After Ms. Rudd called the legislation "world-leading," Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, expressed his concern that other countries would use the law as a stepping-stone for their own surveillance.

“It is likely that other countries, including authoritarian regimes with poor human rights records, will use this law to justify their own intrusive surveillance powers,” he said.

In the US, no legislators have proposed storing all users’ internet search history, and it is unlikely that any will, says Timothy Edgar, a cybersecurity expert at Brown University, in a phone interview with The Christian Science Monitor.

However, such a move would be “very much in keeping with [President-elect Donald Trump’s] more authoritarian, strongman-style rhetoric,” Mr. Edgar adds.

In an interview during the election campaign, Mr. Trump stated that “a lot of people would be willing to give up some privacy in order to have more safety.”

And the lack of understanding of technical issues identified by Sir Berners-Lee is not uniquely a British problem. 

“There’s not a whole lot of knowledge even after a big debate … of what the law currently allows,” Edgar explains, noting that both technology and privacy law have proven confusing for some members of Congress.

A European court ruling on surveillance could result in some parts of the new law being amended, and the government says other parts require testing before being implemented.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Britain's internet history law: A new frontier of surveillance?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/2016/1129/Britain-s-internet-history-law-A-new-frontier-of-surveillance
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe