Investigatory Powers Bill — House of Lords, 2016-10-19
Topic: Law and Crime
Brian Paddick (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, Amendment 196A is in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Hamwee. It seeks to remove internet connection records from the type of communications data that can be acquired in bulk. Noble Lords will be very well aware of my views, and the agreed view of the Liberal Democrats, on internet connection records. We believe that they are unnecessary and disproportionate, for the reasons that I have articulated in detail throughout the passage of the Bill I shall just remind your Lordships what internet connection records mean. Internet service providers are being forced to keep a record of every website that everyone in the UK has visited in the last 12 months, whether the subscriber is suspected of crime or not. Even though only the first page of each website visited is shown, visiting www.relate.org.uk could, for example, immediately indicate that your marriage was in trouble. However there are some safeguards, including some concessions extracted by the Labour Opposition, to ensure that only the internet connection records of those suspected of crimes that could result on conviction in a sentence of 12 months’ imprisonment or more can be examined by law enforcement agencies We are also grateful to the Labour Opposition for securing the review of bulk powers carried out by David Anderson QC, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation. We are particularly grateful to David Anderson for highlighting in paragraph 2.41(b), on page 33 of his report on bulk powers, that, "it is not currently envisaged that the bulk acquisition power in the Bill will be used to obtain internet connection records" However, in a footnote at the bottom of that page, Mr Anderson states that he has been told, "that this is no more than a statement of present practice and intention: neither the Bill nor the draft Code of Practice rules out the future use of the bulk acquisition power in relation to ICRs" In Committee, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, said: "I can confirm to the Committee that the agencies do not currently acquire internet connection records in bulk and have no current intention to do so. It is however important to ensure that we do not legislate against the possibility of internet connection records being acquired in bulk, should agencies make a case which demonstrates that this might be necessary and proportionate in the interests of national security in future".—[Official Report, 7/9/16; cols. 1087-88.] Surely we should be legislating for a proven need, not not legislating against a possible but unlikely proven one Noble Lords will remember that the security services—GCHQ, MI5 and MI6—have all said that they do not need internet connection records in order to do their work. The power to acquire communications data in bulk, including the power to acquire ICRs in bulk, is available only to those agencies. The power to acquire internet connection records in bulk is therefore not needed. They are not collected in bulk at the moment, and there is no current intention to do so. If this were an opposition amendment to include ICRs in bulk data acquisition, the Government would quite rightly say it was unnecessary. The power to acquire ICRs in bulk also strips away all the safeguards that are in place when law enforcement agencies apply for individual internet connection records This is the online equivalent of Section 44 of the Terrorism Act, which allowed the police to stop and search people without any reasonable suspicion. The former Home Secretary, now the Prime Minister, Theresa May took that power away from the police because she considered it disproportionate.