UK Lawmakers Request 86 Changes to Snoopers' Charter Draft Bill

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – A new draft bill in the United Kingdom giving sweeping surveillance powers to security and intelligence services needs at least 86 amendments to ensure the document’s legal framework is "workable," the Joint Committee on the Draft Investigatory Powers Bill said in a statement.

On November 4, 2015, UK Home Secretary Theresa May introduced the Investigatory Powers Bill institutionalizing the national surveillance of citizens, giving police and intelligence services access to browsing history and personal communications.

"The Committee makes 86 detailed recommendations aimed at ensuring that the powers within the Bill are workable, can be clearly understood by those affected by them and have proper safeguards. The single biggest safeguard is the much greater involvement of judges in authorising warrants for intrusive capabilities, which the Committee welcomes," the UK parliamentary committee said in a press release to accompany its report.

The lawmakers in particular pointed to the new powers requiring Internet and phone companies to store people’s web browsing histories, Internet connection records (ICRs), for 12 months, claiming the costs of data processing and storage would be substantial.

They also called for the the role of the UK judicial commissioners to be strengthened, recommending that they should be appointed and dismissed by the lord chief justice, not the prime minister, and be given the power to launch their own probes.

On Tuesday, the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee said in a much more critical report that the new snooping draft bill’s provisions on three key surveillance areas – equipment interference, bulk personal datasets and communications data – were too broad and lacked sufficient clarity.