Electronic surveillance

MI5 was bulk collecting public’s data, with little or no oversight

MI5 was allowed to escape regular scrutiny of its bulk collection of communications data by the watchdog charged with overseeing it, newly-released confidential correspondence reveals.

Privacy International (PI) has released the documents ahead of Monday’s parliamentary debate on the controversial Investigatory Powers (IP) Bill, known to its detractors as the Snoopers’ Charter.

The documents detail correspondence carried out in 2004 between the Home Office and the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) with Sir Swinton Thomas, the Interception of Communications Commissioner at the time.

In one letter, the Home Office urged Thomas to authorize MI5’s data collection for a “database project” under the 1984 Telecommunications Act, rather than the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA), the Guardian reports.

Using the telecommunications act would not require a notice to be put before Parliament because it could be used secretively on the grounds that “disclosure of the direction would be against the interests of national security.”