British government announces plans for new espionage law

The British government has published plans for the new Espionage Act. The text does not directly speak of an encryption ban, which has been speculated about in recent days. The proposal does contain a number of new powers.

Now that the plans for the British Espionage Act or Investigatory Powers Bill are known, more clarity was expected about issues that have been on the British mind in recent times. However, the proposal leaves room for interpretation. The chapter dealing with Communication Service Providers or CSPs states that no new requirements are imposed on these service providers when it comes to encryption. It builds on an already existing law. It is unclear to what extent CSPs are obliged to cooperate in removing encryption.

However, a new obligation has been created to ‘cooperate’ with equipment interference. This means that they must help if security services and police want to remotely access a device and download its content. The bill applies to all companies offering services or deploying communication systems in the UK. It is unclear whether companies can claim that such access is impossible, as Apple claims with the encryption of iOS devices. It is also not known what the sanctions are for not providing access.

Other powers in the proposal, according to the Independent, mean that the government can see when citizens have visited which sites and which apps have been used. This concerns metadata and not content data. The retention period is set at one year.