The extreme surveillance law was recently signed off by the Queen
Soon after the Queen supplied her signature on the UK’s surveillance law, the EU dealt a major blow to the Investigatory Powers Act.
The Act, which is more commonly referred to as the “snooping charter” allowed for the government’s intelligence agencies and law enforcement to obtain data on suspects without warrants and also required websites to retain an archive on a consumer’s history for a year.
New Scientist reports that the EU court ruled such data retention is not permissible and stressed that EU member states “may not force telecommunications companies to indiscriminately retain data about their users.”
The court also sad data collection could “allow very precise conclusions to be drawn concerning the private lives of the persons whose data has been retained” and that it “is likely to cause the persons concerned to feel that their private lives are the subject of constant surveillance.”
The case came after a challenge was brought forward by privacy organizations against the temporary Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act (DRIPA), which shares many provisions with the IPA. The high court deemed the law as illegal and following the ruling, many have claimed that key aspects the IPA must be amended.
Read more here
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Retention of data seemed cool years ago but now, the fact that the government or anyone else for that matter, can find out your life history with the click of a few buttons is threatening all forms of privacy. Thailand also recently passed a cybercrime law which my friend who happens to be a Thai lawyer practicing criminal law in Thailand thinks is extremely dangerous considering how strict the Thai military has become with regards to online activity. Defamation or dissidence of the royal family military rule is something one should not even consider thinking about in Thailand. Maybe its time we revert back to old age.