Home Office To Discuss Data Surveillance Revisions

The Home Office will include civil rights groups previously ruled out of a consultation over revisions to data interception laws.

The UK government is revising its intercept legislation – such as the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) – after being given two months to take action by the Europena Commission.

Its Good To Talk

The Home Office had previously refused to meet with privacy advocates such as the Open Rights Group (ORG), but in light on the EC stance, has now reversed this decision and will meet with them in the next week. It has also extended the consultation deadline until 17 December.

The reason for the u-turn, according to the BBC, was because of an EC investigation into how controversial ad-tracking technology Phorm was rolled out in the UK. The EU discovered that there is no legal recourse for UK citizens who believe their email or web browsing data is being monitored, and there is no official body to deal with such complaints.

This puts the UK in breach of the European e-Privacy directive and has forced the Home Office to reconsider its RIPA legislation. The RIPA consultation document proposes the creation of civil sanctions even against unintentional interception of customer communications.

RIPA Revisions

The Interception of Communications Commissioner (IoCC) would gain powers to act against ISPs and telecom carriers in addition to the IoCC’s existing brief to regulate wiretapping by the intelligence departments.

If the amended RIPA is passed, the IoCC would be able to impose fines of up to £10,000 for unintentional interception. If the breach was shown to be intentional, the penalty could be a prison term of up to two years upon conviction.

Any changes could have implications for BT for example. The Information Commissioners Office (ICO) has previously ended its investigation of BT over Phorm, arguing that the Act had allowed such activity if the user’s consent was implied.

A change could also impact companies such as Google, bearing in mind its accidental collection of  huge amounts of private data with its Street View service.

U-Turn Welcomed

The Home Office decision to meet with civil liberties groups was welcomed by Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group (ORG).

“The Home Office, after several weeks of requests from ORG and others, has agreed to a meeting of civil society representatives next week concerning their review of enforcement of RIPA’s interception laws,” Killock wrote on his blog.

“This is a small but important victory for ORG: it is vital that civil society is not “locked out” of discussions like this, allowing industrial voices to determine the agenda alone. We fought for several years alongside groups like No2DPI to get these laws changed, during the “Phorm” case, including sending many complaints to the EU Commission. It would be entirely wrong that we should now be shut out of the process,” he added.