The new IP Bill…. first thoughts…

This morning, in advance of the new draft of the Investigatory Powers Bill being released, I asked six questions:

At a first glance, they seem to have got about 2 out of 6, which is perhaps better than I suspected, but  not as good as I hoped.

1. On encryption, I fear they’ve failed again – or if anything made things worse. The government claims to have clarified things in S217 and indeed in the Codes of Practice – but on a first reading this seems unconvincing. The Communications Data Draft Code of Practice section on ‘Maintenance of a Technical Capability’ relies on the idea of ‘reasonability’ which in itself is distinctly vague. No real clarification here – and still the possibility of ordering back-doors via a ‘Technical Capability Notice’ looms very large. (0 out of 1)
2. Bulk Equipment Interference remains in the Act – large scale hacking ‘legitimised’ despite the recommendation from the usually ‘authority-friendly’ Intelligence and Security Committee that it be dropped from the Bill. (0 out of 2)
3. A review clause has been added to the Bill – but it is so anaemic as to be scarcely worth its place. S222 of the new draft says that the Secretary of State must prepare a report by the end of the sixth year after the Bill is passed, publish it and lay it before parliament. This is not a sunset clause, and the report prepared is not required to be independent or undertaken by a review body, just by the Secretary of State. It’s a review clause without any claws, so worth only 1/4 a point. (1/4 out of 3)
4. At first read-through, the ‘double-lock’ does not appear to have been notably changed, but the ‘urgent’ clause has seemingly been tightened a little, from 5 days to 3, but even that isn’t entirely clear. I’d give this 1/4 of a point (so that’s 1/2 out of 4)
5. The Codes of Practice were indeed published with the bill (and are accessible here) which is something for which the Home Office should be applauded (so that’s 1 and 1/2 out of 5)
6. As for giving full time for scrutiny of the Bill, the jury is still out – the rumour is second reading today, which still looks like undue haste, so the best I can give them is 1/2 a point – making it a total of 2 out of 6 on my immediate questions.

That’s not quite as bad as I feared – but it’s not as good as it might have been and should have been. Overall, it looks as though the substance of the bill is largely unchanged – which is very disappointing given the depth and breadth of the criticism levelled at it by the three parliamentary committees that examined it. The Home Office may be claiming to have made ‘most’ of the changes asked for – but the changes they have made seem to have been the small, ‘easy’ changes rather than the more important substantial ones.

Those still remain. The critical issue of encryption has been further obfuscated, the most intrusive powers – the Bulk Powers and the ICRs – remain effectively untouched, as do the most controversial ‘equipment interference’ powers. The devil may well be in the detail, though, and that takes time and careful study – there are people far more able and expert than me poring over the various documents as I type, and a great deal more will come out of that study. Time will tell – if we are given that time.