Police Given Greater Surveillance Power
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If Britain wasn’t under enough surveillance already, a new bill will soon be able to give police the power to view the browsing history of everyone in the country.
On Wednesday, Home Secretary Theresa May will unveil the new surveillance bill. Within this, it is believed that officers will be allowed to view web addresses accessed by a user, as well as searches made and details of the website itself. This data will be kept for a year, with officers able to view it at any point using a judge-approved warrant. In a report by The Times, Richard Berry (the Police’s spokesman for national communication) states that “we want to police by consent…but we need to balance this with the needs of the vulnerable and the victims.”
There is no doubt that this is a highly controversial matter, which has already been criticised by many. In particular, Tory MP David Davis thinks that surveillance has been taken too far, with “no proven need to retain such data for a year.” Others think that it is necessary in order to protect the innocent and give justice to those who go against the law. Clearly, this is a topic that will be debated widely after its release next week.