Snooper's Charter is set to become law

[xxMATTGxx]

The Investigatory Powers Bill has been passed by both Houses of Parliament. Once it receives Royal Assent it will become law.

Now the bill has been passed by both of these official bodies, it is almost law. Before it officially is adopted, however, it will need to receive Royal Assent, which is likely to be given before the end of 2016 (to match the government's intentions and ahead of existing surveillance laws expiring).

Here's a reminder of what the legislation includes:

Hacking power
For the first time, security services will be able to hack into computers, networks, mobile devices, servers and more under the proposed plans. The practice is known as equipment interference and is set out in part 5, chapter 2, of the IP Bill.

This could include downloading data from a mobile phone that is stolen or left unattended, or software that tracks every keyboard letter pressed being installed on a laptop.

"More complex equipment interference operations may involve exploiting existing vulnerabilities in software in order to gain control of devices or networks to remotely extract material or monitor the user of the device," a draft code of conduct says.

The power will be available to police forces and intelligence services. Warrants must be issued for the hacking to take place.

Bulk hacking
For those not living in the UK, but who have come to the attention of the security agencies, the potential to be hacked increases. Bulk equipment interference (chapter 3 of the IP Bill) allows for large scale hacks in "large operations".

Data can be gathered from "a large number of devices in the specified location". A draft code of practice says a foreign region (although it does not give a size) where terrorism is suspected could be targeted, for instance. As a result, it is likely the data of innocent people would be gathered.

Security and intelligence agencies must apply for a warrant from the Secretary of State and these groups are the only people who can complete bulk hacks.

Commissioners
To help oversee the new powers, the Home Office is introducing new roles to approve warrants and handle issues that arise from the new powers. The Investigatory Powers Commissioner (IPC) and judicial commissioners (part 8, chapter 1 of the IP Bill) will be appointed by Theresa May, or whoever the serving prime minister is at the time.

The IPC will be a senior judge and be supported by other high court judges. "The IPC will audit compliance and undertake investigations," the government says.

"The Commissioner will report publicly and make recommendations on what he finds in the course of his work," guidance on the original bill says (page 6). "He will also publish guidance when it is required on the proper use of investigatory powers."

Web records
Under the IP Bill, security services and police forces will be able to access communications data when it is needed to help their investigations. This means internet history data (Internet Connection Records, in official speak) will have to be stored for 12 months.

Communications service providers, which include everything from internet companies and messenger services to postal services, will have to store meta data about the communications made through their services.

The who, what, when, and where will have to be stored. This will mean your internet service provider stores that you visited WIRED.co.uk to read this article, on this day, at this time and where from (i.e. a mobile device). This will be done for every website visited for a year.

Web records and communications data is detailed under chapter 3, part 3 of the law and warrants are required for the data to be accessed. A draft code of practice details more information on communications data.

Bulk data sets
As well as communications data being stored, intelligence agencies will also be able to obtain and use "bulk personal datasets". These mass data sets mostly include a "majority of individuals" that aren't suspected in any wrongdoing but have been swept-up in the data collection.

These (detailed under part 7 of the IP Bill and in a code of practice), as well as warrants for their creation and retention must be obtained.

"Typically these datasets are very large, and of a size which means they cannot be processed manually," the draft code of practice describes the data sets as. These types of databases can be created from a variety of sources.

Source: http://www.wired.co.uk/article/ip-bi...details-passed

Thoughts?

Do you care about your privacy or are you one of the people who would say "nothing to hide, nothing to fear"?

[-:Undertaker:-]

What pisses me off is they attempt to justify all this to keep us safe whilst having little control over who is actually coming here.

That said, even though against this as an increase in state power I think there's much more important and 'practical' battles to fight over civil liberties and protecting our freedoms. For example detention without trial for 'terror offences' being spookily extended would be one, the basic ability to be able to choose not to bake a cake in your own bakery, the ability to choose whether or not people can light up in your own property, opposing the European Arrest Warrant which gives other governments the automatic right to cart you off and land you in a foreign prison for months without trial, the existence of "hate speech" laws, the downright scary secret courts which have been floated for things such as family issues, the centralisation of the Police forces in Scotland under the SNP and the outdated powers of the BBC to snoop around and prosecute people for not having a television license.

[scottish]

I don't particularly care, but I can see the 12 month history not ending well as it'll get hacked/exposed at some point lol

[FlyingJesus]

struts thru index.dat

I'm sure they aren't gonna bother doing random spot checks of civilian PCs just in case they find something, it's to use in cases where specific information is needed from a specific source. Without this a lot of evidence could never be used without the govt being countersued, so yeah I have no problem with this

[Reality]

I saw this post the other day
http://www.thecanary.co/2016/11/21/k...veillance-law/
And won't lie I do agree with most of what it is saying although some of it is far fetched I do agree with it's general baseline
By imposing this law virtually represent s being strip searched at an airport but without the liberty of giving consent...

[lemons]

dont care tbh

Edited By: James (Trialist Forum Moderator) - Please do not post pointlessly, thanks.

[Catchy]

Can someone explain in simple terms what this means for the everyday person?

[FlyingJesus]

Nothing at all. There's absolutely zero chance that they're going to suddenly start looking through every bit of everyone's computer history in the country, they struggle enough getting stuff out of the few computers they do monitor

[xxMATTGxx]

They say if you've done nothing wrong then they probably won't go looking on any information they have on you or will get from this new bill.

But, all remember the NSA? Well they are still around but the leaks from Snowden and what they were capable of doing? Well don't put it past you that our own GCHQ can do similar tasks.

It's more about we are losing our privacy more and more and this only just adds to it. It can get worse and who knows, it may do in the future.

[xxMATTGxx]

Just found this today which is a list of agencies/government bodies that can request for your internet history:

A list of who will have the power to access your internet connection records is set out in Schedule 4 of the Act. It’s longer than you might imagine:

Metropolitan police force
City of London police force
Police forces maintained under section 2 of the Police Act 1996
Police Service of Scotland
Police Service of Northern Ireland
British Transport Police
Ministry of Defence Police
Royal Navy Police
Royal Military Police
Royal Air Force Police
Security Service
Secret Intelligence Service
GCHQ
Ministry of Defence
Department of Health
Home Office
Ministry of Justice
National Crime Agency
HM Revenue & Customs
Department for Transport
Department for Work and Pensions
NHS trusts and foundation trusts in England that provide ambulance services
Common Services Agency for the Scottish Health Service
Competition and Markets Authority
Criminal Cases Review Commission
Department for Communities in Northern Ireland
Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland
Department of Justice in Northern Ireland
Financial Conduct Authority
Fire and rescue authorities under the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004
Food Standards Agency
Food Standards Scotland
Gambling Commission
Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority
Health and Safety Executive
Independent Police Complaints Commissioner
Information Commissioner
NHS Business Services Authority
Northern Ireland Ambulance Service Health and Social Care Trust
Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service Board
Northern Ireland Health and Social Care Regional Business Services Organisation
Office of Communications
Office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland
Police Investigations and Review Commissioner
Scottish Ambulance Service Board
Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission
Serious Fraud Office
Welsh Ambulance Services National Health Service Trust