A new crime bill being debated in British parliament provides authorities in the UK and overseas unprecedented powers to access data and poses a threat to press freedom, eight watchdog groups said in a letter on Wednesday.
The letter was signed by Reporters Without Borders, Index on Censorship, English PEN, Big Brother Watch, Open Rights Group, the National Union of Students, Committee on the Administration of Justice and Cage.
In 2016, Britain adopted a controversial Investigatory Powers Bill, dubbed as the “snooper’s charter”. The legislation enables the UK security services and police to hack into phones and computers as well as gives police a new power to view call and web records of journalists. Moreover, the law also obliges web and phone companies to store web browsing histories of people for 12 months and provide the police and security services with extraordinary access to the private data.Last September, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the UK government had breached the right to privacy with its mass electronic surveillance program, which was exposed by former US National Security Agency (NSA) Edward Snowden. The court assessed three aspects of digital surveillance, including the interception of communications, intelligence sharing and acquisition of communications data.
For instance, a document released in 2013 by Snowden revealed that the GCHQ orchestrated a cyberattack against Belgium’s largest telecommunications company Proximus Group, formerly known as Belgacom Group, in an operation dubbed “Socialist” in August of the same year. According to the leaked documents, the cyberattack enabled the GCHQ to gain unauthorized access to the telecommunication company’s customers personal data.
However, following the revelations, the UK refused to work with the Belgian Federal Prosecutor’s Office on the case, stressing its unwillingness to cooperate with the investigation by alleged threats to Britain’s sovereignty and security, The Guardian reported in October 2018.
The Belgacom’s case sparked a backlash among the world’s most renowned watchdogs and non-governmental monitors that have reportedly slammed the incident as a grave violation of human rights, freedom of information and privacy.