27
ISSUES: Privacy
Chapter 2: Surveillance
Broad support for increased surveillance
powers
British people say the police and intelligence agencies should retain all of their
communications data for 12months –but tend toopposeabanonencryption software.
T
he attack on French satirical magazine
Charlie
Hebdo
last week has added fresh impetus to the
Conservatives’ ongoing struggle to introduce new
surveillance legislation. The Draft Communications Data
Bill 2012 (dubbed the ‘snoopers charter’) would have
extended data retention obligations on communications
companies to include the metadata of social media, email
and Internet voice calls; however, it was blocked by the Lib
Dems. Now there is even greater need for such legislation,
says David Cameron, because newer forms of encrypted
communication such as WhatsApp and Snapchat may be
‘unreadable’ by intelligence.
YouGov research for the
Sunday Times
finds the British
public supportive of increasing the security services’ access
to public communications in order to fight terrorism (by
52–31%).
Most people (53%) say that, specifically, phone and
Internet companies should be required to retain everyone’s
internet browsing history, emails, voice calls, social media
interactions and mobile messaging, which the police and
intelligence agencies would be able to access for anti-
terrorism purposes. 31% would oppose giving the security
forces these powers.
The 2012 Communications Data Bill required security
services to receive a warrant from the Home Secretary
before they could access the content – not merely the who,
when, where and how (themetadata) – of a communication.
By 51–35% the public support this qualification, as
Limited trust in surveillance institutes’ behaviour
To what extent, if at all, would you trust the following to behave
responsibly with information obtained using new surveillance powers?%
Intelligence services
Police
Source: YouGov, Jan 2014
63%
29%
50%
Trust
Don’t trust
42%
