IP Bill: Tech Firms Attempt to Offer Respite from Surveillance
Now that the Investigatory Powers Bill has been passed, tech firms are looking for ways to offer customers ways to circumvent the spying associated with the law.
Now that the Investigatory Powers Bill has been passed, tech firms are looking for ways to offer customers ways to circumvent the spying associated with the law.
The Investigatory Powers Bill was approved by the House of Lords on 19 November and is expected to become law before the end of 2016.
Parts of the law, mandate that UK ISPs must keep a record of all UK citizens' online activities, including which services their customers' devices connect to, and which messaging apps they use.
Owing to a recent swathe of data breaches, many security experts have questioned whether or not ISPs would have the ability to securely maintain all the internet connection records they would collect under the law.
Jacob Ginsberg, senior director at Echoworx points out, “What happens when this treasure-trove of metadata is made publically available by a malicious attacker? We need to think longer and harder about the implications of unavoidable outcomes and the impacts they will have on people's lives, whether it's discrimination over an insurance policy or an outright attack on privacy.”
