Another rushed law, another death knell for privacy

[tmcd35]

The Beeb have updates with a more detailed sub-articled linked: BBC News - What emergency data law means for you

 

Of particular interest:

 

Only certain authorities are able to gain information this way, as covered by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa). As part of this new law, the number of organisations that are allowed to intercept calls is to be reduced.

 

also:

 

It outlines their legal obligation to retain "communications data" on its customers. This metadata includes things like logs of when calls were made, what numbers were dialled, and other information that can be used, the government says, in investigations. It does not include the content of the communications.

 

and

 

A transparency report will, each year, list the number and type of requests made to communication firms under the new law - similar to the way in which Google, Facebook and other technology firms publicise their actions relating to user privacy

 

I'm still drawing parallels with my own Smoothwall installation and wondering what the fuss is about?...

 

They're required to keep them, and a list of different organisations can access them without any warrant or oversight.

 

This is worrying but as little to do with this act. It's the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act that allows access without warrant or oversight. Maybe we should have paid more notice when that was being passed?

 

Although glancing at Wikipedia's RIPA entry, the authorities legally allowed to access the data can't go on a fishing expedition and needs authorisation from a senior person. I assume by that there is some accountability if a search was authorised without reasonable probable cause.

Edited July 10, 2014 by tmcd35

[SovietRussia]

Here is the bill if nobody has seen it:

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-data-retention-and-investigatory-powers-bill

[sonofsanta]

I still don't get why they need to rush it through when they've had three months notice. The party line is that they've been pressured into providing this guidance by the telecoms companies asking for legal clarification; when the ECJ ruling went through, did they expect them to continue to hold the data illegally (in contravention of DPA) out of good manners? They knew it needed clarifying whether or not they were being asked for that clarification, so why have they waited then claimed they need to rush it through?

 

@tmcd35 - we saw with the Snowden relevations on the NSA how lax that oversight often was. Not directly applicable to the UK bodies affected by this, but certainly indicative of human nature.

 

On a tangentially related note: anyone else amused by the overly florid introduction to Bills?

BE IT ENACTED by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows

Lords Temporal? Is the government advised by Time Lords now?

[localzuk]

This is worrying but as little to do with this act. It's the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act that allows access without warrant or oversight. Maybe we should have paid more notice when that was being passed?

 

We did pay attention. There were protests. And "slippery slope" was brought up. Now confirmed.

 

Although glancing at Wikipedia's RIPA entry, the authorities legally allowed to access the data can't go on a fishing expedition and needs authorisation from a senior person. I assume by that there is some accountability if a search was authorised without reasonable probable cause.

 

Its already been shown that RIPA has been abused all over the place...

[SovietRussia]

We did pay attention. There were protests. And "slippery slope" was brought up. Now confirmed.

 

 

 

Its already been shown that RIPA has been abused all over the place...

 

RIPA is supposed to be authorised by the Secretary of State for the Home Department of Secretary of State for Justice along with these outlined in RIPA:

 

(a)the Director-General of the Security Service;

(b)the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service;

©the Director of GCHQ;

(d)the Director General of the [F1Serious Organised Crime Agency]F1 ;

[F2(da)the Director General of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency;]

F2(e)the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis;

(f)the Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary;

(g)the chief constable of any police force maintained under or by virtue of section 1 of the Police (Scotland) Act 1967;

(h) the Commissioners for Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs;

(i)the Chief of Defence Intelligence;

[localzuk]

You'd be wrong there I think - Local Councils Abusing Anti-Terrorism Powers For Lesser Crimes

 

The list of possible users of RIPA is much longer than that. That list is for a specific part of RIPA. A long list of agencies can also access the data - Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000

[Theblacksheep]

RIPA is supposed to be authorised by the Secretary of State for the Home Department of Secretary of State for Justice along with these outlined in RIPA:

 

(a)the Director-General of the Security Service;

(b)the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service;

©the Director of GCHQ;

(d)the Director General of the [F1Serious Organised Crime Agency]F1 ;

[F2(da)the Director General of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency;]

F2(e)the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis;

(f)the Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary;

(g)the chief constable of any police force maintained under or by virtue of section 1 of the Police (Scotland) Act 1967;

(h) the Commissioners for Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs;

(i)the Chief of Defence Intelligence;

 

 

Over 700 establishments can use it including all all 400+ councils. Its also been used by County Councils to do surveillance on residents to see if parents are living within school catchment areas or if sick employees were well enough to leave to house. Your tax is paying for council employees to literally sit outside other peoples houses and spy on them.

 

In 2010 it was used 8,500 times by County councils with under 400 prosecutions.

 

The slippery scope argument, only police etc were designed to use it at first.

 

EDIT: @localzuk beat me to it.

 

 

 

How many of us run Internet filters that keep just these kinds of logs? I do. Is that an invasion of our users privacy?

 

A school is not a free and open system. It is on a technical level an invasion of privacy, but students have no expectation of privacy on a school system. I dont think there is a parallel between a school system and a national phone/internet system.

 

It is interesting to talk about why we have these systems in school and why a government would want to know what sites you've visited and when.

 

Its also interesting to consider that a multi-year retention period doesn't mean the data can be grabbed and stored elsewhere by GHCQ. Whats really significant is the data analysis tools as shown by Snowden, tying up phone/email/sms/facebook/blog records with users. Thats where GHCQ /NSA systems go beyond the needles and haystacks "too much data" argument, there's no such thing as too much data to sort through.

 

I'd be more worried about forcing all outgoing traffic through a great firewall of the UK were packet sniffing gets a lot easier than this - even with this needles and haystacks come to mind.

 

They tap the fibres, they don't need a great firewall.

 

 

 

A dragnet is not going to stop anyone or anything from happening, because the ones that actually want to harm the country wouldnt be that stupid. It'll only be used to further curtail civil liberties further when it catches some stupid kids trying to setup their own ISIS.

 

On the week of the state "losing" records on high level government officials abusing children is more than a little ironic, but hey if you have nothing to hide... bend over.

Edited July 10, 2014 by Theblacksheep

[Alkaline]

Its making legal what has rightly been made illegal by Europe.

 

People have everything to fear from a state that has too much power. The Steven Lawrence family had nothing to hide yet they faced surveillance, intimidation and propaganda from state tools. I find the nothing to fear comments bordering on the retarded, unless sarcastic.

 

I do not see an alternative for the government to follow. There is no other sufficient way they would be able to keep track of these people planning attacks against us without seeing who they are in contact with.

 

There are millions of people connecting to the mobile phone and internet services in the UK. Most of the data will sit on the database for twelve months or so and then be deleted. If they want to look at who you are talking to they need a warrant and good reason.

 

I am quite sure if an attack were to occur, the majority of people who are against limited snooping would be the first to ask why the attackers were not being monitored.

 

Anyone who does not wish to be monitored does not use the system, if they are really that concerned.

 

I don't care very much for Europe and hope we are out of it soon. But that is another matter.........

[localzuk]

There are millions of people connecting to the mobile phone and internet services in the UK. Most of the data will sit on the database for twelve months or so and then be deleted. If they want to look at who you are talking to they need a warrant and good reason.

 

That's the problem. They don't need a warrant for a request for the data via RIPA. They only need a warrant to engage in more detailed surveillance.

[Alkaline]

This is going around on other forums, now I think that is retarded.

 

Hitler's Rise of Evil (Full Documentary) Part 2 - YouTube

[Bompalompalomp]

My letters have fallen on deaf ears, it seems. I wrote to my MP a while ago pleading against the filter (specifically asking him to respond with something other than "THINK OF THE CHILDREN", I laid out alternatives beyond government censorship and reasons why it wouldn't protect children...) and got "As a father, I am all for this" basically in response.

[sonofsanta]

My letters have fallen on deaf ears, it seems. I wrote to my MP a while ago pleading against the filter (specifically asking him to respond with something other than "THINK OF THE CHILDREN", I laid out alternatives beyond government censorship and reasons why it wouldn't protect children...) and got "As a father, I am all for this" basically in response.

 

You got a reply? Think yourself lucky! I wrote to Sir Peter Tapsell about the Digital Economy Act and got absolutely nothing. Possibly because he is the very paragon of "safe Tory seat voting as the whip tells him to" and needs to do nothing to maintain his position in the House of Commons except eat, breath and poop.

[X-13]

My letters have fallen on deaf ears, it seems. I wrote to my MP a while ago pleading against the filter (specifically asking him to respond with something other than "THINK OF THE CHILDREN", I laid out alternatives beyond government censorship and reasons why it wouldn't protect children...) and got "As a father, I am all for this" basically in response.

 

You should have sent an email with a link to Bill Bailey's "speaking as a mother" comment back.

[mthomas08]

Nothing to fear, nothing to hide.

 

There is nothing new, only making legal what was already being done.

 

This is kind of my feeling.

 

As or the OP: Sorry but if you have nothing to hide then what is really the problem. I also hate the accusation of being "ignorant" to what is being done simply because I don't agree or disagree with you. This goes back to when Torrent sites were being blocked, Service providers had to give options to filter and all the other changes the Government makes regarding the Internet. The screams of liberties that were being made when Torrent search sites were being blocked..... I told a friend when it happened I really didn't care. Although in a less polite manner.

 

My view is as long as the government isn't knocking on my door every 5 minutes telling me the sites I have visited. If Mr Cam who has no clue about IT wants a BIG HUGE "Access database" to store millions of visited websites every hour, let him. He will hire some one like us to set it up, maintain it and probably do log checking.

 

Good luck to the poor person who sits there checking it on a daily basis. Good luck to him when it comes to checking how many torrent sites (the ones not blocked yet) get visited daily. Good luck to him for keeping all that in check.

 

Bad enough doing it in a School with 1400+ users but doing for a nation???

 

Like many things that happen in this country it will get setup, some will scream freedom, some like me won't care and nothing will change.

The end result will be everyone will forget about it and move on.

[localzuk]

As someone who has been on the receiving end of police corruption and lies, I can safely say that the "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" argument is demonstrably fallacious. The amount of corruption/law misuse in this country is quite high, with police lying about people who they don't like, or if they have a political agenda (where my experience of it comes from).

 

Even if you've got nothing to hide, you should fear the police and government as they stand right now. The law does not apply uniformly, as they have better access to its apparatus and therefore can manipulate it to get any outcome they wish to.

[X-13]

Sorry but if you have nothing to hide then what is really the problem.

 

So... because I like having some semblance of privacy, I'm trying to hide illegal activities?

 

 

You're lucky this is a family-friendly forum and I can't say what I really want to.

[sparkeh]

As or the OP: Sorry but if you have nothing to hide then what is really the problem.

You mean trust the authorities?

The kind of authorities that withhold evidence in murder investigations and smear the victims families: Murder of Stephen Lawrence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The kind of authorities that try to evade investigation of a major tragedy, concoct lies about the events of that tragedy and cover up their own mess: Hillsborough disaster - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The kind of authorities that regularly misuse existing surveillance powers (topics exist on this subject already).

 

The "if you have nothing to hide then what's the problem" argument is pretty much meaningless.

[sonofsanta]

The quote that always holds the strongest resonance for me is from Cardinal Richelieu: "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged." @mthomas08 - you've never, not ever, gone over the speed limit on the motorway when it's near midnight, there's no-one else around and you want to get home? You've not crept up to 80, knowing (rightly) that speed itself can do no harm, only the misapplication there of, and an empty motorway can safely sustain that speed and more?

 

Then there's the potential for government to suddenly declare that something that was previously fine is now no longer, and they'll be examining logs to determine who can be charged/who should be watched. Then there's the stereotyping of people based on irrelevant information - the NSA classified a Linux site as an extremist forum. There's nothing to hide there, but they're still judging you as if you should have something to hide.

 

There's activities that aren't illegal and don't require hiding from a moral/legal standpoint, but can be very embarassing and damaging if leaked - imagine if it was "accidentally" revealed that Ed Milliband enjoyed wearing women's underwear. That's not illegal, and absolutely his choice, but I can guarantee he would end up resigning because he'd have become unelectable*.

 

And, of course, if transparency and "nothing to hide" is such a great idea - why do GCHQ and the NSA etc. all hide what they're doing? Why doesn't it apply to them?

 

*obviously and completely fabricated and not an actual fact. The underwear thing, not the unelectable thing - that's debatable...

[CAM]

It's more we don't trust politicians as to their knowledge of the Internet and how it works. Take a politician who shall not be named who was championing the filter then her site got hacked. A blogger posted pictures of the site on their blog and she went after them threatening to sue them for computer crimes for hacking her website and showing zero idea of how the Internet works even though she legislates about it. Got criticism? Jump in with an unrelated Twitter scandal going on at the same time and watch the blame get deflected and covered up whilst branding every person unhappy with her foul behaviour as trolls.

 

Name not mentioned because I'd rather not have a run in with her again...

[Grey-gear]

I'm a bit confused about this, in common law (the system of law that the UK law follows) there is no freestanding right to privacy which would make this new law legal as it doesn't brake any law, but as the EU has struke down rights that allow this from happing so in EU law what the goverment are going to do is breaking the law. I'm I reading this wrong or I'm I confusing myself? Plus how can we be part of the EU and want a bigger say in the running of the EU when the goverment just picks and choose what to follow?

 

Sorry if I am being stupid.

[localzuk]

I'm a bit confused about this, in common law (the system of law that the UK law follows) there is no freestanding right to privacy which would make this new law legal as it doesn't brake any law, but as the EU has struke down rights that allow this from happing so in EU law what the goverment are going to do is breaking the law. I'm I reading this wrong or I'm I confusing myself? Plus how can we be part of the EU and want a bigger say in the running of the EU when the goverment just picks and choose what to follow?

 

Sorry if I am being stupid.

 

Common law is not "the system of law the UK law follows" on its own. It is one aspect of it - all the legislation on the books also form the laws of the UK. We have codified the European Convention on Human Rights (which itself is a codification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) into law via the Human Rights Act 1998. That means we have a right to privacy.

 

The UK government are writing this new law in response to the earlier one being ruled illegal by the European courts. It is simply legislating with a delay - the law will inevitably be challenged, but the courts are slow, so the damage will already have been done. Especially with the sunset clause in place.

[tmcd35]

Personally I feel the issues need to be separated. From what I can see, and as I mentioned previously, most complaints actually have nothing to do with the law in the OP. Rather they relate to a 14year old piece of statute that is actually being tightened by this new legislation.

 

There's a lot not to like about this story. Our relationship with the EU. The way bills can be rushed through parliament. The seemingly unchecked unilateral powers being given to the home secretary to define data retention regulations. But I don't think privacy is one of them.

 

Ignore who has access to the data for a second, that is a separate issue covered by the previous act. The question is should ISP's be compelled to retain logs for a predetermined length of time to aid in legitimate criminal investigations?

 

I'd have thought any reasonable person would agree to that? I'm sure we can all think of scenarios where police investigations might benefit from such data - paedophilia, terrorism, etc. Personally I don't see the difference between this and what we do with our internal filters.

 

The separate issue is who has access to the data, how they gain access, etc. That is covered predominantly by the 2000 RIP Act. I can understand questions and grievances aimed at this. Although a quick scan of the Wikipedia entry didn't throw up anything I thought was particularly frightening I'd happily bow to more knowledgeable views on this.

 

I also think the economics of scale mean I don't feel my privacy is eroded if some log somewhere has amongst a million other entries for 3am last Friday that I visited bikinilovers.com (made up site, not checked, if link is live may be NSFW).

[localzuk]

Ignore who has access to the data for a second, that is a separate issue covered by the previous act. The question is should ISP's be compelled to retain logs for a predetermined length of time to aid in legitimate criminal investigations?

 

I'd have thought any reasonable person would agree to that? I'm sure we can all think of scenarios where police investigations might benefit from such data - paedophilia, terrorism, etc. Personally I don't see the difference between this and what we do with our internal filters.

 

Why stop with the internet? Why not log all postal mail items? Why not log all journeys people take by car, bus, train, and on foot etc... Why not track where everyone shops at all times? The concept is that of privacy. You're handing over an awful lot of information to cover relatively few actual real world criminal issues - most of which have been dealt with using traditional policing and intelligence methods for decades just fine.

 

Schools could benefit know how their pupils are eating, sleeping and behaving outside of school - should they know that too?

 

Also, you can't really separate out the access issue. Do you really want your browsing information available to your local authority parking or school admissions teams? They have access to the information that is collected now...

[Bompalompalomp]

There are many legal things I wouldn't be comfortable with my mother knowing, let alone my government and whatever companies pay them for the information.

 

I'll give the government my secrets when they give me theirs and are completely open with their practices and the practices of everyone in charge.

[localzuk]

whatever companies pay them for the information.

 

That's also a very good point. History has shown us that the government has a habit of selling the information it gathers. So, its another slippery slope problem coming along.