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UK: INVESTIGATORY POWERS BILL: The Home Office Only Listens When We Don’t Want Them To

09 May 2016

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"Today the latest version of the Investigatory Powers Bill was published. The Government might want some credit for being transparent and publishing the document with tracked changes so we can see how it has changed since the Bill was published in early March. But more so than transparency, it indicates their brazen approach to consultation. Why? Because the Bill has barely changed: a spelling and grammar tidy up e.g. ‘intellegences services’ changed to ‘intelligence services’; A few provisions made even more draconian than they already were e.g. “If it is not reasonably practicable for an instrument making a major modification to be signed by the Secretary of State, the instrument may be signed by a senior official designated by the Secretary of State for that purpose”. This new provision means that major modification to a bulk warrant that may lead to greater intrusion into thousand or even millions of people’s personal information could now be signed off — not by a Secretary of State, not a judge, not even a Minister — but by a civil servant."

See: The Home Office Only Listens When We Don’t Want Them To (Medium, link)

View all the changes made to the Bill by the Home Office: Is the Home Office Listening? (link), or in pdf format: Investigatory Powers Bill (as amended in Public Bill Committee) and see the Privacy International campaign: Don't Bug my Computer (link)

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