The Investigatory Powers Bill Causes Security Nightmare

The Internet service providers of the United Kingdom are reportedly told to prepare themselves for the installation of new equipment that aims at logging their users' internet habits. The Investigatory Powers Bill was set to endorse with royal assent on November 29, 2016 while it had over 130,000 people who were united to get it scrapped and also signed a petition for the purpose.

Among one of the petitioners, Tim Berners-Lee says the new bill has created a "security nightmare" while another Internet user Edward Snowden describes it as the most severe surveillance in Western democracy's history.

However, despite the petition went viral on the Internet, the approved bill is going to impose on the communication companies to retain records of all websites and messaging services available to the people across the United Kingdom. The data will be retained on per year basis and will be retrieved from all kinds of devices used to access the Internet.

Most people believe the petition was started a bit late as the bill had already gone through the parliament for approval process and was due to get royal assent. However, it is also not deniable that having signed by more than 100,000 people, the petition is likely to get debated in the Parliament. There are fewer chances of ministers taking any further notices on the matter. Previously, they had taken notice of the petition called for an examination vessel to be titled as Boaty McBoatface.

The most dramatic phase of the bill is that it came to approval after sailing through with insignificant opposition though it was questioned by SNP and Liberal Democrats. It perhaps because of  the fact that the Internet Service providers, wide technology sector as well as privacy campaigners were unsuccessful in getting politicians to look for their views and concerns.

According to the inventor of the Internet there are three things about the new law bill. The snoopers charter doesn't fit to a modern democratic system and seems undermining users' fundamental rights of being online. There is a bulk collection of every user's internet data which will go disproportionate and create a security nightmare for every Internet Service Provider who stores the browsing data as a key practice.  Moreover, the new law is like riding roughshod over users' rights to secure their privacy. Meanwhile, the bill that contains loads of hacking powers is a security risk and can make the internet less safe for all users.

The inventor had previously described the bill as “dark” when it was passed in the parliament but later in November he revealed saying he feels it is important to strengthen the accountability provision. Referring to the aforementioned statement, he said, the new law has faced a sustained opposition at almost each stage of its development. And he strongly spoke out against it when it was first floating in last year in May. Later the law was brought into the parliament for approval making all technology enterprises come forward together to oppose it. Moreover, the civil society and the Web Foundation were strongly critical and several committees worked to review the law made ending criticisms.