This article is more than 1 year old

'Snoopers' Charter IS DEAD', Lib Dems claim as party waves through IP address-matching

UK government moves to extend spying on YOU online

I'll have an IP address please, Bobby

The government will propose this week that ISPs should be obliged to retain information which would help police and g-men to match IP addresses to individuals.

In a statement to The Register, the Home Office outlined Whitehall's plans:

Every internet user is assigned an IP address to ensure communication service providers know which data should go to which customer and routes it accordingly. Addresses are sometimes assigned to a specific device, such as a broadband router located in a home or company. But they are usually shared between multiple users and allocated randomly by the provider's automated systems.

Many providers currently have no business reason for keeping a log of who has used each address. It is therefore not always possible for law enforcement agencies accessing the data to identify who was using an IP address at any particular time.

Such communications data is a vital tool in the investigation of terrorist and criminal activity, and significantly contributes to the conviction of child sex offenders.

The inability to link IP addresses to individuals poses serious challenges for law enforcement agencies. The proposed measures would reduce the risk of terrorism by improving the ability of the police and other agencies to identify terror suspects who may be communicating with each other via the internet.

It would also help to identify and prosecute organised criminals; cyber bullies and computer hackers; and protect vulnerable people. For example, it can be used to identify a child who has threatened over social media to commit suicide.

This legislation will not however address all the capability gaps that the Draft Communications Data Bill aimed to fill. These gaps will continue to have a serious impact on law enforcement and intelligence agencies. For example, the provisions will not enable the retention of "weblogs" — a record of information relating to a communication between a user and the internet, including a record of websites that have been visited.

May once again lobbied for her mothballed Communications Data Bill to be rehashed. She said: "we need to make further changes to the law."

The Home Sec added:

"These measures are among a package of tough new powers that will address specific gaps in our armoury of powers to disrupt travel to Syria or Iraq and manage the risk posed by returnees.

"This data will only be available on a case by case basis, where necessary and proportionate, to public bodies approved by Parliament to acquire it for lawful purposes."

The Labour Party has previously made it clear that it would throw its weight behind the Tories and back a law enabling greater online surveillance in the name of fighting terrorists and crimelords.

In July, again with full backing from the LibDems, the government's controversial data retention and investigatory powers bill (Dripa) was quickly shoved through Parliament.

The legislation was necessary, May successfully argued, to put misgivings from tech giants "beyond doubt", after a European Court of Justice ruling in April said that the 28-member-state's bloc Data Retention Directive should be trashed because it interfered with privacy and human rights' rules. ®

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like