Labour and the #IPBill

I am a legal academic, specialising in internet privacy – a lecturer at the UEA Law School. I am the author of Internet Privacy Rights: Rights to Protect Autonomy, published by Cambridge University Press in 2014, and was one of the academics who was a witness before the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Investigatory Powers Bill. I am also a member of the Labour Party – this piece is written from all of those perspectives.

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 Labour and the Investigatory Powers Bill

The Investigatory Powers Bill has its second reading on Tuesday – part of what appears an attempt to pass the Bill with unseemly haste. One of the biggest questions is how Labour will approach the Bill – the messages so far have been mixed. Andy Burnham’s press release on the 1^st of March in response to the latest draft was from my perspective the best thing that has emerged from Labour in relation to surveillance in many decades, if not ever.

What is important is that Labour builds on this – for in taking a strong and positive response to the Investigatory Powers Bill Labour has a chance to help shape its future in other areas. What is more, Labour can tap into some of its best and most important traditions and realise the promise of some of its best moments.

Demand more time

The first and most important thing that Labour should do at this stage is demand more time for scrutiny for the bill. There are some very significant issues that have not received sufficient time – the three parliamentary committees that have examined the bill so far (the Science and Technology Committee, the Intelligence and Security Committee and the specially convened Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Investigatory Powers Bill) all made that very clear. The Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, David Anderson QC has also been persistent in his calls for more time and more careful scrutiny – most recently in his piece in the Telegraph where he said:

“A historic opportunity now exists for comprehensive reform of the law governing electronic surveillance. Those who manage parliamentary business must ensure that adequate time – particularly in committee – is allowed before December 2016.”

David Anderson is right on all counts – this is a historic opportunity, and adequate time is required for that review. How Labour responds could well be the key to ensuring that this time is provided: a strong response now, and in particular the willingness to reject the bill in its entirety unless sufficient time is given, would put the government in a position where it has to provide that time.

As well as pushing for more time, there are a number of things that Labour – and others – should be requiring in the new bill, many of which were highlighted by the three parliamentary committees but have not been put into the new draft bill.

Proper, independent oversight

The first of these is proper, independent oversight – oversight not just of how the powers introduced or regulated by the bill are being used in a procedural way (whether warrants are being appropriately processed and so forth) but whether the powers are actually being used in the ways that parliament envisaged, that the people were being told and so forth. Reassurances made need to be not just verified but re-examined – and as time moves on, as technology develops and as the way that people use that technology develops it needs to be possible to keep asking whether the powers remain appropriate.

The oversight body needs not just to be independent, but to have real powers. Powers to sanction, powers to notify, and even powers to suspend the functioning of elements of the bill should those elements be found to be no longer appropriate or to have been misused.

Independent oversight – as provided, for example, by the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation – is not just valuable in itself, but in the way that it can build trust. Building trust is critical in this area: a lot of trust has been lost, as can be seen by the rancorous nature of a lot of the debate. It would help everyone if that rancour is reduced.

Re-examine and rebalance ‘Bulk Powers’

One of the most contentious areas in the bill is that of ‘Bulk Powers’: bulk interception, bulk acquisition (of communications data), bulk equipment interference (which includes what is generally referred to as ‘hacking’) and bulk personal datasets. These powers remain deeply contentious – and potentially legally challengeable. There are specific issues with some of them – with bulk equipment interference a sufficiently big issue that the Intelligence and Security Committee recommended their removal from the bill.

It is these powers that lead to the accusation that the bill involves ‘mass surveillance’ – and it is not sufficient for the Home Secretary simply to deny this. Her denials appear based on a semantic argument about what constitutes ‘surveillance’ – and argument that potentially puts her at odds with both the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union. It also puts the UK increasingly at odds with opinion around the world. The UN’s Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy, Joseph A. Cannataci, said in his Report to the UN Human Rights Council on the 8^th March:

“It would appear that the serious and possibly unintended consequences of legitimising bulk interception and bulk hacking are not being fully appreciated by the UK Government.”

Much more care is needed here if the Investigatory Powers Bill is to be able to face up to legal challenge and not damage not only people’s privacy but the worldwide reputation of the UK. Again, proper and independent oversight would help here, as well as stronger limits on the powers.

An independent feasibility study for ICRs

The Home Office have described ‘Internet Connection Records’ as the one genuinely new part of the Investigatory Powers Bill: it is also one of the most concerning. Critics have come from many directions. Privacy advocates note that they are potentially the most intrusive measure of all, gathering what amounts to substantially all of our internet browsing history – and creating databases of highly vulnerable data, adding rather than reducing security and creating unnecessary risks. Industry experts have suggested they would be technically complex, extortionately expensive and extremely unlikely to achieve the aims that have been suggested. All three parliamentary committees asked for more information and clarity – and yet that clarity has not been provided. The suggestion that ICRs are like an ‘itemised phone bill’ for the internet has been roundly criticised (notably by the Joint IP Bill Committee) and yet it appears to remain the essential concept and underpinning logic to the idea.

Given all this, to introduce the idea without proper testing and discussion with the industry seems premature and ill conceived at best. If the idea cannot be rejected outright, it should at least be properly tested – and again, with independent oversight. Instead of including it within the bill, a feasibility study could be mounted – a year of working with industry to see if the concept can be made to work, without excessive cost, and producing results that can actually be useful, can be properly secured and so forth. If at the end of the feasibility study the evidence suggests the idea is workable, it can be added back into the bill. If not, alternative routes can be taken.

Reassess encryption

Perhaps the most contentious issue of all at present is the way in which the bill addresses encryption. All three parliamentary committees demanded clarity over the matter – particularly in relation to end-to-end encryption. That clarity is conspicuous by its absence in the bill. Whether the lack of clarity is intentional or not is somewhat beside the point: the industry in particular needs clarity. Specifically, the industry needs the government to be clear in the legislation that it will not either ban end-to-end encryption, demand that ‘back doors’ are built into systems, or pressurise companies to build in those back doors or weaken their encryption systems.

The current position not only puts the government at odds with the industry, it puts it at odds with computer scientists around the world. The best of those scientists have made their position entirely clear – and yet still the government seems unwilling to accept what both scientists and industry are telling them. This needs to change – what is being suggested right now is dangerous to privacy and security and potentially puts the UK technology industry at a serious competitive disadvantage compared to the rest of the world.

Working with industry and science

Therein lies one of the most important keys: working with rather than against the IT industry and computer scientists. Plans such as those in the Investigatory Powers Bill should have been made with the industry and science from the very start – and the real experts should be listened to, not ridden roughshod over. Inconvenient answers need to be faced up to, not rejected. Old concepts should not be used as models for new situations when the experts tell you otherwise.

This is where one of Labour’s longest traditions should come into play. Harold Wilson’s famous Scarborough speech in 1963, where he talked about the ‘white heat’ of technology is perhaps even more apt now than it was all those years ago. Labour should be a modernising party – and that means embracing technology and science, listening to scientists and learning from them, using evidence-based policy and all that entails. Currently, the Investigatory Powers Bill is very much the reverse of that – but it still could become that, if appropriate changes are made.

Protecting ordinary people

Labour should also be tapping into another strong tradition – indeed in many ways its founding tradition. Labour was born to support and protect working people – ‘ordinary’ people in the positive sense of that word. Surveillance, in practice, often does precisely the opposite – it can be used by the powerful against those with less power. It can be politically misused – and the history of surveillance of trade unionists, left-wing activists is one of which the Labour Party should be acutely aware. Without sufficient safeguards and limitations, any surveillance system can and will be misused, and often in precisely these kinds of ways.

Labour could and should remember this – and work very hard to ensure that those safeguards and limitations are built in. Some of the measures outlined above – proper oversight, rebalancing bulk powers, a feasibility study on ICRs in particular – are intended to do precisely that.

Not ‘soft’ but strong

Building in these safeguards, working with technology industries and scientists, protecting rather than undermining encryption should not be seen as something ‘soft’ – and any suggestion that by opposing the measures currently in the Bill is somehow being ‘soft’ on terrorists and paedophiles should not just be rejected but should be turned on its head. The current bill will not protect us in the ways suggested – indeed, it will make us less secure, more at risk from cybercriminals, create more openings for terrorists and others, and could be a massive waste of money, time and expertise. That money, time and expertise could be directed in ways that do provide more protection.

What is more, as noted above, the current bill would be much more vulnerable to legal challenge than it should be. That is not a sign of strength: very much the opposite.

Labour’s future direction

Most of these issues are relevant to all political parties – but for Labour the issue is particularly acute. Labour is currently trying to find a new direction – the challenge presented by the Investigatory Powers Bill could help it be found. A positive approach could build on the old traditions outlined above, as well as the human rights tradition build in Blair’s early years: the Human Rights Act is one of New Labour’s finest achievements, despite the bad treatment it receives in the press. A party that forges alliances with the technology industry and with computer science, one that embraces the internet rather than seeing it as a scary and dangerous place to be corralled and controlled, is a party that has a real future. Labour wants to engage with young people – so be the party that supports WhatsApp rather than tries to ban it or break it. Be the party that understands encryption rather than fights against it.

All this could begin right now. I hope Labour is up to the challenge.