Electronic surveillance

UK green-lights mass spying, hacking and bulk collection of your internet records

The UK Investigatory Powers Bill (IPBill), also known as the Snoopers' Charter, has been granted royal assent, officially giving police departments and intelligence agencies enhanced bulk surveillance and hacking powers.

On 29 November, the Home Office marked the passing saying that security officials will now have "the powers they need in a digital age to disrupt terrorist attacks." The UK Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, praised the bill as a piece of "world-leading legislation."The law gives officials the legal backing to collect – in bulk – metadata about your phone calls, text messages, internet browsing habits and social media data. It forces telecommunications and internet providers to store this for 12 months.

By bringing together past pieces of legislation, it puts into law many of the surveillance programmes leaked by Edward Snowden in 2013 that were already in use by GCHQ, MI5 and MI6.

Such powers include bulk interception, bulk computer hacking and bulk collection of personal datasets from UK citizens not suspected of any crime.