Court ruling will force UK to limit its surveillance powers
The UK government is definitely going to have to make some significant changes to its digital surveillance regime after the Court of Appeal today ruled various snooping powers unlawful . Specifically, the court said that communications data -- the who, when, where and how of a conversation, but not the content -- must only be accessed for the purposes of "fighting serious crime." Furthermore, the state must not look at data before first receiving the approval of a court or independent body. Unfortunately for the government, the Investigatory Powers Act (IP Act) that became law in late 2016 doesn't comply with these rules of thumb, so it looks like there's no other option but to make some serious amendments. The Court of Appeal judgment has been a very, very long time coming, and is actually relevant to a now-expired law, the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act (DRIPA). You see, the EU issued a directive way back in 2006 that compelled telecoms providers t...