There is much in the draft Investigatory Powers Bill that seeks to achieve an equilibrium between the needs of security and the requirements of privacy. Theresa May, the Home Secretary, has taken on board many of the concerns voiced about the expansion of the surveillance state. If she has not quite reined it in, and it is far too late for that, she has at least proposed a system of checks and balances that will make it less intrusive than it might otherwise be.
As Mrs May told MPs, the communications technology that most of us use has evolved significantly since the state’s powers to retain and examine personal data were first brought together 15 years ago in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa). In that time, the threats and security challenges the government has to deal with have grown. The law must be brought up to date and those we entrust to keep us safe must have the powers that enable them to do so.
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Mrs May has prepared the ground well for this particular measure, with an unprecedented PR campaign in advance of the publication, involving MI5, MI6, GCHQ and the police. The Home Secretary has gone out of her way to concede that she has retreated from tougher powers proposed three years ago and vetoed by the Lib Dems in the Coalition, the so-called Snooper’s Charter.
But while her ambitions to protect the country cannot be faulted, we must also be careful not to take everything at face value. Civil liberties groups still regard the powers in this Bill as excessively intrusive. It is a complex measure that ranges far wider than the pursuit of terrorists or child abusers. Dozens of public authorities, including local councils, are empowered to access communications data in pursuit of lawbreakers. So, this is not just about national security.
However, the Home Secretary maintains that the Bill will underpin one of the most comprehensive systems of transparency, accountability and oversight in the world governing a state’s right to intrude. Moreover, by introducing it in draft form and inviting further consultation she has given Parliament time to scrutinise and improve the measure before it goes through its formal legislative process. It is the Government’s duty to keep us safe. But we want to retain as much of our privacy as is commensurate with that aim. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to ensure that the former can be achieved without sacrificing the latter.
