Eyes watching your privacy. Shutterstock/ Ziben. All rights reserved.Following
the Snowden revelations, the Home Office had an important test to pass. The
test had only one question: “Introduce a world class piece of legislation which
balances the need for surveillance powers with our essential civil liberties.
Discuss”… in 300 pages or less. The Home Office has not learnt their lesson.
The
report card for the draft Investigatory Powers Bill, the new proposals to
regulate the surveillance powers of the police, intelligence agencies and a
wide range of other public bodies into the next decade, is now in. Three
committees, three reports, one conclusion later: the Bill isn't ready. It
continues to threaten our right to privacy with overly broad powers for
intelligence agencies and police, and scant regard for democratic rights.
It’s
time to get out the red pen and give some grades to the draft Investigatory
Powers Bill. The 123 recommendations spread
across the three reports give the Home Office plenty of homework for some of
the much needed revision required.
Science
and Technology Committee: Grade D
First,
the Science and Technology Committee. The confusion surrounding equipment
interference – hacking by any other name – isn't just embarrassing but
threatening to the security of UK commerce. TechUK, a representative of the UK
technology sector has specific concerns about the effect government hacking
would have on the business model of many companies in the UK. The Committee
concluded that implementing the Bill would be too complex and too expensive.
The Bill gets a D from the Science and Technology Committee.
Intelligence and Security
Committee: Grade F
The
Intelligence and Security Committee, charged with overseeing the policies and
practices of intelligence agencies, was even more scathing. By failing to
include explicit protections for the right to privacy at the core of the Bill,
the Home Office has not done their homework and missed a vital piece of working
that reflects poorly on them.
Including
wide powers to obtain datasets of innocent individuals, the majority of whom
will be of no interest to the Agencies, did not escape the attention of the Committee
either. By calling for the removal of these broad powers, and also removal of
the intrusive powers for authorising bulk hacking, the Committee is taking a
very big, very red pen to the Home Office's work, with a big “not
proportionate” scrawled across the page. This is a “must try harder and focus”,
an F.
Joint Committee on the draft
Investigatory Powers Bill: Grade C
While
not as ferocious as the ISC report, the Joint Committee on the Draft
Investigatory Powers Bill still had some significant concerns about the draft
Bill, with 86 recommendations across its colossal 198 pages. Calling for a
removal of the vague authorisation to collect Bulk Personal Datasets and a
clearer statement on the effect the Bill has on end-to-end encryption further
add to the negative feedback the Home Office are receiving on the Bill.
The
Joint Committee is more deferential to the Home Office and the intelligence
agencies in their report than the other two committees, but they have
nonetheless made more recommendations than the other two put together. While
not an F, the verdict is still that this is a below average bill. A soft C from
the Joint Committee.
Next
steps…or not
Some
may say that this draft Bill should continue on its current path which appears
to be for publication around Easter. This is the wrong approach. This is a
defining piece of legislation, set to solidify intelligence and law enforcement
powers for at least the next ten years.
Currently,
the draft Bill is not up to scratch and that is not only a disappointment but a
shocking missed opportunity. Civil society, international human rights
institutions, and three ground breaking reports from independent bodies
published last year called for reform of the current UK legislative framework.
This
assignment is too big to not take another look at the working and see where the
Bill can be improved. Education used to be characterised by the “Three Rs”, the
Investigatory Powers Bill and the Home Office should embrace a new set of
“Three Rs”: Review, Revise, and Return with a Bill that is up to the task of
balancing the power of intelligence agencies in the UK with the right to privacy.
The
British public will not accept a law that treats the Internet, the greatest
modern innovation for cultural, economic and social development, as something
that must be hacked, tracked, and mined. The Home Office now need to do their
homework and take on board all the advice they have been given if they want to
improve their grades.
Fundamental
redrafting is needed for the Bill before it can be considered “world-leading”
as Theresa May called it when she introduced the draft Bill in November. The Home
Office must return to the drawing board with these reports in hand if the Bill
is going to stand a chance of getting a pass mark.
We're
currently living with spying laws that are eroding our democracy. The Snowden
revelations were an earthquake. We needed change, we needed the intelligence
agencies to come out of the shadows. What we got instead was the Investigatory
Powers Bill.