UK surveillance laws tightened up as most spying demands to be subject to warrants
- Reference: 1595496365
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/07/23/investigatory_powers_act_commencements/
- Source link:
Newly commenced sections of the Investigatory Powers Act, better known as the Snoopers' Charter, will slightly restrict the ability of local councils and other such undesirables to spy on you and your digital doings.
Specifically, the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 (Commencement No.12) Regulations 2020, nodded through by Parliament on Monday, means anyone trying to spy on your communications data must now get the permission of your telco or postal service - or convince a judicial commissioner to sign off a warrant forcing disclosure.
UK spy auditor gives state snoops a big pat on the back for job well done – except MI5 [1]READ MORE
Tech lawyer Neil Brown of decoded.legal told The Register that the laws "cut away some of the powers which up until today can be used to obtain communications data". He added: "I think this is a good thing and this represents a lessening of the scope of the powers which are available."
Section 12 and Schedule 2 of the Snoopers' Charter are now in force. Section 12(2)(b) contains the key wording, which says that any "general information power" that "does not involve a court order or other judicial authorisation or warrant and is not a regulatory power or a relevant postal power... is to be read as not enabling the public authority to secure such a disclosure."
In other words, as section 12(5)(a)(i) puts it, any surveillance power granted to the public sector under any law other than the Snoopers' Charter itself or the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) now can't be exercised unless your telco or Royal Mail (or parcel courier, for that matter) can be persuaded to hand over access to your communications.
"You can still use a regulatory power but only if you couldn't do it under the IPA 2016," explained Brown, referring to what wannabe snoops can and can't do under the new rules.
I always feel like... somebody's watching me
Abuse of surveillance powers by councils in particular has long been a feature, not a bug, of UK domestic spying laws. Back in 2008, Bury Council was given a £100,000 slap on the wrist after abusing RIPA powers to [2]covertly surveil a bin lorry crew who picked up the wrong rubbish .
However, it appears that the tightening of the law explicitly excludes RIPA 2000 powers, of which a concerning number remain on the statute book.
Statutory auditor IPCO, the Investigatory Powers Commissioner's Office, did not respond to a request for comment. In addition to issuing annual reports into the use of spying powers by state agencies, IPCO also counts a number of retired judges in its ranks as judicial commissioners.
These commissioners issue, and occasionally deny, spying warrants under the double-lock procedure. Its most recent annual report concluded that all was well in state surveillance land [3]despite hundreds of journalists, MPs, lawyers and doctors being targeted by the public sector for covert surveillance .
The judicial commissioner role is being migrated to the [4]Office for Communications Data Authorisations . ®
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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2020/03/06/ipco_annual_report_2018_mi5_naughty/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2008/09/10/ripa_bury_council/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2020/03/06/ipco_annual_report_2018_mi5_naughty/
[4] https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/office-for-communications-data-authorisations/about
[5] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Step in the right direction
Proxy consent is not consent.
A veneer of due process, is not due process.
Simply ask yourself if this is a) to protect people from unwarranted (and warrantless) surveillance, or b) to protect the snoopers and the telcos from possible liability, if this is ruled illegal.
It's clearly b) and its not a step in the right direction, because it simply delays the correction to this bad law.
By the time you see the need to put in the checks and balances, it will already be too late to do it.
Re: Step in the right direction
It is meaningless without enforcement and sanctions.
For example, in 2016 the Investigatory Powers Tribunal ruled that UK security services had illegally collected confidential personal data on an industrial scale for nearly twenty years. There were no consequences for the crime, other than a government spokesman saying [1]Oh dear, how sad, never mind .
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dLu62fPVo0
"all was well in state surveillance land"
Well of course it is. There have never been so many ways to get data on people, not to mention the data people themselves willingly post in social media.
Surveillance organizations are positively creaming themselves daily on all the stuff they can gather without any oversight whatsoever. And if a judge starts getting uppity, they just promise to not do it any more, continue doing it, and flag it under National Security where no judge can go.
It's a great time for surveillance. Not so much for Democracy. And I would really like to know just how many crimes all this "surveillance" has prevented.
Because that's how they're presenting it, right ? They need surveillance to find terrorists before a bomb blows. So how many terrorists have they stopped ? I think we should be told.
Then again, that just means that I'm expecting them to actually tell the truth, which is a patently ridiculous notion.
So let's all just carry on with our lives, and wait for better times.
Still a Very Bad Law
States : "any surveillance power granted to the public sector under any law other than the Snoopers' Charter itself or the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) now can't be exercised unless your telco or Royal Mail (or parcel courier, for that matter) can be persuaded to hand over access to your communications."
So, essentially, they have reduced the powers of RIPA, but if the telco or postal can be "persuaded", then they will hand over the data anyway ???
What if the telco or postal think, maybe we ought to charge for this - and so it then becomes a profit decision for the postal/telco.
I think the law should be changed to notify that the person has been investigated by non-criminal bodies, maybe 1 year after the investigation - so we the people can then decide for ourselves about any abuse of power.
Re: Still a Very Bad Law
strangely enough, I was phoned by my (italian) bank to come and sign to accept an anti-terrorism check on my finances, under the strict Italian privacy laws. They mentioned that 'it was purely routine' but it wasn't.
I have evidence that my house was broken into at the same time. I still haven't been notified that I have been the subject of a non-criminal investigation. It might be fun one day to ask a bit.
That's what happens when you sit as an official observer on some rather serious telco standards bodies for retained data, so now who else was on that committee?, hmm - the 3 russians busy with SORM & SORM II, the british 'expert' liasing with huawei UK research, the chinese themselves and then rather a lot of......
What about the Stasi
at the Local Council and their non-digital antics ?
"must now get the permission of your telco or postal service"
I wonder how hard that will be - most likely "roll over and hand over"
We need a test case
Any telco or other organ that parts with data because it was 'asked nicely' needs to be taken to court preferably by as many people as possible, so the a precedent can be set on what, when and to whom, data can be released.
Otherwise there is no real difference to before.
???
anyone trying to spy on your communications data must now get the permission of your telco or postal service - or convince a judicial commissioner to sign off a warrant forcing disclosure
Wait, what? Permission of my telco should be trivial to get - the council can just clag them on the PSL and they'll bend and receive. Permission of the postal service.... so just ask Royal Mail? WTF have those dinosaurs got to do with anything? I'm not sure what I've missed here but I hope its something....
The judge bit is a good move.
Re: ???
"so just ask Royal Mail? WTF have those dinosaurs got to do with anything? I'm not sure what I've missed here but I hope its something...."
I seem to remember that the Royal Mail has its own police and prosecutions team for historical reasons.
More government!
Slow moving and self serving makes it difficult to move the government to change direction. Hopefully a reminder to people who want more government
Regarding Bury Council and expecting their employees to do what they are paid to do
If I pay you to do some work for me, what should I do if I find you are also doing work for someone else at my expense rather than charging them for it?
Somebody - Bury's residents in this case - were paying to have their rubbish collected. The newsagent should have been paying commercial rates to have his commercial rubbish collected but it's the residents who ended up paying for it. And then Bury's residents got to pay a second time because where does the council get its money from to pay the fine? But 'Yay' for those people sticking it to the Council! Power to the People!
And some people wonder why local government has a hard time balancing the books.
Step in the right direction
It's not massive, but at least it's a step in the right direction, and sets the tone for when we need to make massive changes because we (predictably) don't get a Adequacy decision from the EU after January because we allow too much state access.