The dangers of UK plans to tighten surveillance laws are called out: “Weapons of State Surveillance”

As Politico explains, the British government wants to build on its landmark Investigative Powers Act, a controversial piece of legislation that critics dubbed the “Spy Charter” when it was introduced back in 2016.

The law, introduced after Edward Snowden’s revelations of mass government surveillance, attempted to introduce greater accountability into Britain’s sprawling surveillance regime by formalizing sweeping powers to intercept emails, text messages, web history and more.

The updated legislation is sparking fresh outcry among both tech industry executives and privacy advocates who say it could hamper efforts to protect user privacy.

Industry body TechUK has written to Home Secretary James Cleverley to voice its concerns. The group’s letter warns that the amendment to the Investigative Powers Bill threatens technological innovation; undermines the sovereignty of other countries; and could have dire consequences if it causes a domino effect abroad.

Technology companies are most concerned about the change, which will allow the Home Office to issue notices preventing them from making technical updates that could impede the sharing of information with British intelligence agencies.

TechUK argues that, when combined with pre-existing powers, the changes “will provide a de facto power to veto indefinitely companies making changes to their products and services offered in the UK.”

“By using this capability, the government could prevent the introduction of new end-to-end encryption or prevent developers from patching vulnerabilities in code that the government or its partners would like to exploit,” Meredith Whittaker, president of the secure messaging app Signal, told Politico.

The UK Home Office remains adamant when it comes to technical and procedural changes. Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Office, Andrew Sharp, told the House of Lords that the bill “does not intend to ban end-to-end encryption or introduce a veto power for the Secretary of State, contrary to what some have erroneously suggested”: “We have always been clear that we support technological innovation, and private and secure communications technologies, including end-to-end encryption. But this cannot come at the cost of public safety, and it is important that decisions are made by those with democratic responsibility.”

Despite protests from industry and activists, the British government is pushing the bill through Parliament at breakneck speed, risking anger from lawmakers.

Ministers have so far blocked attempts to finalize the bill in the House of Lords. However, Politico notes, there are more opportunities to challenge the upcoming legislation, and industry representatives are already reaching out to members of Parliament in hopes of returning it to the House of Commons.

“We stress the urgent need to allow sufficient time to thoroughly discuss these changes, emphasizing that careful consideration is essential given the international precedent they will set and their very serious consequences,” TechUK said in the letter.

The backdrop to the row is the fierce debate over encryption that unfolded during the passage of the previous Internet Safety Act, which companies and campaigners argued could force companies to break encryption in the name of internet security.

Many large organizations and popular messaging services have threatened to stop providing their services in the UK if they are asked to remove encryption in accordance with UK laws.

“Overall, it appears that Section 122 of the Internet Security Bill is intended to undermine existing encryption, while the IPA updates are intended to block further implementation of encryption,” Whittaker said.

Rights activists are also concerned that the bill allows for more liberal use of large amounts of data where privacy expectations are “low or nonexistent,” for a variety of purposes, including training artificial intelligence models.

Liberal Democrat Christopher Fox told the House of Lords that it “creates a fundamentally new and essentially undefined category of information” that marks a “departure from existing privacy law”, particularly the Data Protection Act.

Big Brother Watch group director Silkie Carlo also has problems. For example, in the case of CCTV footage or social media posts, people may not have an expectation of privacy, “but that’s not the point, the point is that this data, when put together and processed in a certain way, can be incredibly intrusive.”

Members of the House of Lords are also concerned about the proposal contained in the bill to expand the circle of persons who can authorize surveillance of parliamentarians themselves. This currently requires the prime minister’s approval, but under the bill, the prime minister would be able to appoint deputies in case he is “not available.” The change was inspired by the period when former Prime Minister Boris Johnson was incapacitated due to Covid-19.

“The purpose of this bill is to give intelligence agencies a little more flexibility in areas where the current regime is proving a little clumsy and bureaucratic. If you put too many safeguards in place, you defeat that purpose and don’t solve the problem the bill addresses,” said David Anderson, one of the amendment’s sponsors.

Anderson suggested changes to surveillance of MPs and colleagues were needed “if the prime minister contracts COVID or if he is in a foreign country where he does not have access to secure communications.”

This could apply even in cases where there is a conflict of interest because spies want to track down relatives of the prime minister or the prime minister himself, he added.

The amendments proposed by colleagues at the committee stage were unanimously rejected by the government. The bill will return to the House of Lords for the next stage of the legislative process on January 23, before heading to the House of Commons for debate by MPs.

“Our main concern is that the significance of the proposed changes to the notification regime are being presented by the Home Office as minor adjustments and being downplayed,” TechUK said.

“What we see in these various bills is a constant movement towards turning private tech companies into surveillance weapons of the state,” echoes Silkie Carlo.