New regulations proposed by the Government would beĀ yet another erosion of peopleās civil liberties.
The House of Lords cannot stop or amend the regulations, but we can put on record our dissent, and I’m tabling a motion to do that today.
The courts have ruled the police should only have your itemised phone bill, a record of where youāve been with your mobile phone or which websites youāve been looking at on the internet if theyāre investigating serious crime.
The Government are trying to get around the judgement by re-defining āserious crimeāĀ as any offence involving communication, whether itās serious or not.
I have tabled a ‘Motion to Regret’ theĀ Data Retention and Acquisition Regulations 2018Ā after Ministers failed to answer privacy concerns I raised in aĀ Grand Committee debateĀ last week.
The regulationsĀ would amend the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, also known as the āSnoopersā Charterā, toĀ give police the power to access communications dataĀ when investigating any crime āwhich involves, as an integral part of it, the sending of a communication or a breach of a personās privacyā.
This follows aĀ judgement from the Court of JusticeĀ of the European Union in December 2016, which ruled that that such data must only be used āfor the purpose of fighting serious crimeā.
This is yet another erosion of peopleās civil liberties, giving the police draconian powers instead of the resources they desperately need to do their job properly and responsibly.
At the last election, Liberal Democrats pledged more money for the police than any other political party.Ā Only the Liberal Democrats are standing up to protect our freedoms and properly fund the police service.
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