The House of Commons Intelligence and Security Committee has recommended that the Government resurrect plans for the dropped Communications and Data Bill.
The Bill, which would give authorities unprecedented access to citizens’ private data was absent from the Queen’s Speech in April and Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg promised that it wasn’t ‘going to happen while Lib Dems are in government.’
The ISC, in its annual report published today, said that it was concerned that the Government’s intentions are ‘unclear.’ Shortly after the Queen’s Speech, a background briefing given to journalists said that the Government was continuing to look at the issue closely. And following the death of soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich, there were calls from several former Home Secretaries for the Bill to be introduced. Current HOme Secretary Theresa May also wants to put the Bill before Parliament.
‘We are concerned that not enough has been done to resolve this issue. The problem will not go away – there remains a capability gap in the ability of the police and agencies to access communications data which must be addressed,’ said the ICS in its report.
The lack of a Communications Data Bill doesn’t mean none of the proposals it contained will find their way onto the statute book. Alexander Hanff, an independent privacy campaigner, told IT Pro in April that ‘Even if the Bill in its current form is dead, there is still the possibility of introducing the most distasteful aspects of [it] into the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) via a Statutory Instrument and I certainly wouldn’t put it past the Government to use this option.’
In addition, GCHQ has access to data gathered from UK citizens by the US National Security Agency under its Prism programme. And The Guardian reported last month that GCHQ’s own Tempora programme involved placing interceptors on 200 fibre optic cables where they come ashore, giving it access to 10GB of data a second. That surveillance is carried out using a clause in RIPA which allows the Home Secretary to issue a certificate for the broad interception of categories of data related to terrorism or organised crime.
The ISC said it was investigating whether GCHQ had broken the law in its collection and storage of data and would publish its results was soon as it was able.
