Forget about the upcoming Snooper's Charter Bill. There are certain organisation who still can store your data even if you delete it. Not all the deletion means are deletion at all.
Both the Houses of Parliament have passed the Investigatory Powers Bill (IPB) . Once the Queen gives Royal Assent, the Snooper's Charter will become law.
That gives the government unprecedented powers to snoop, spy and hack its way into your online private life.
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like BT, Sky, Virgin or TalkTalk will be required by law to keep a record of your internet history for a year. It will be stored in a database available to the police or government whenever they need it.
This is just one aspect of a bill that also covers which apps you use on your phone and any messages you send on any service. The reasoning behind it is that it will help the government find terrorists.
The IPB represents the most intrusive digital surveillance of any democracy on the planet, and has been attacked for over a year by privacy campaigners.
The UK has just legalized the most extreme surveillance in the history of western democracy. It goes farther than many autocracies. https://t.co/yvmv8CoHrj
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) November 17, 2016
In response to the Snooper's Charter passing through parliament, a general manager of Uber wrote a blog post outlining exactly which organisations will be able to see your data.
"I always wondered what it would feel like to be suffocated by the sort of state intrusion that citizens are subjected to in places like China, Russia and Iran," said Chris Yui, who works in Edinburgh.
"I guess we’re all about to find out."
As Yui points out, the list of who has access to your records is laid out in Schedule 4 of the Act.
"It's longer than you might imagine," he wrote.
Here's the full list:
- Metropolitan police force
- City of London police force
- Police forces maintained under section 2 of the Police Act 1996
- Police Service of Scotland
- Police Service of Northern Ireland
- British Transport Police
- Ministry of Defence Police
- Royal Navy Police
- Royal Military Police
- Royal Air Force Police
- Security Service
- Secret Intelligence Service
- GCHQ
- Ministry of Defence
- Department of Health
- Home Office
- Ministry of Justice
- National Crime Agency
- HM Revenue & Customs
- Department for Transport
- Department for Work and Pensions
- NHS trusts and foundation trusts in England that provide ambulance services
- Common Services Agency for the Scottish Health Service
- Competition and Markets Authority
- Criminal Cases Review Commission
- Department for Communities in Northern Ireland
- Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland
- Department of Justice in Northern Ireland
- Financial Conduct Authority
- Fire and rescue authorities under the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004
- Food Standards Agency
- Food Standards Scotland
- Gambling Commission
- Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority
- Health and Safety Executive
- Independent Police Complaints Commissioner
- Information Commissioner
- NHS Business Services Authority
- Northern Ireland Ambulance Service Health and Social Care Trust
- Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service Board
- Northern Ireland Health and Social Care Regional Business Services Organisation
- Office of Communications
- Office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland
- Police Investigations and Review Commissioner
- Scottish Ambulance Service Board
- Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission
- Serious Fraud Office
- Welsh Ambulance Services National Health Service Trust
One of the main concerns experts have about the Investigatory Powers Bill is how the data is going to be protected.
Having that much information in one place is likely to create a huge target for cybercriminals.
Anyone able to break into your ISP's records or any of the above government departments could well get access to a huge amount of information about you. What can you do about it?
The best means of protecting yourself is by setting up a virtual private network (VPN). This bounces your IP address around the world through a network of servers.
All your Internet Service Provider would be able to turn over is the fact that you were using a VPN - rather than a list of the websites you visited.
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