
UK Security Agencies Unlawfully Collected Data for Decade - mocko
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/17/uk-security-agencies-unlawfully-collected-data-for-decade
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tinfoilman
The UK is not going to stop, they are just going to make it legal thanks to
the UK’s Investigatory Powers Bill. There is no opposition to it in the
commons, minus SNP, LibDems I think our last chance to stop it is once again
with the lords which I have little hope for, "wont they think of the children"

[https://www.opendemocracy.net/digitaliberties/julian-
huppert...](https://www.opendemocracy.net/digitaliberties/julian-huppert/uk-
investigatory-powers-bill-becomes-law-terrify-
us?utm_source=Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=3e5b752210-DAILY_NEWSLETTER_MAILCHIMP&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_717bc5d86d-3e5b752210-407396011)

Direct quote “It is difficult to assess the extent to which the public is
aware of agencies’ holding and exploiting in-house personal bulk datasets,
including data on individuals of no intelligence interest …" They admitted in
2013 that the data collected is of "no intelligence interest". Anyone before
snowden was called a nut job saying the government was doing this, it was all
true

Encrypt everything. This is going to force me to VPN to a VPS outside of the
UK and route my house's http/https traffic via that, not hard but annoying.
Sadly that will then put me on another list where all my traffic is recorded
for later decryption.

~~~
schoen
A limitation of "encrypt everything" is that many of the bulk datasets you
referred to aren't taken from communications surveillance, but rather from
other kinds of transactional, subscriber, or governmental records, which are
maintained by other organizations (like a bank).

We can defend against a lot of communications surveillance by encrypting our
communications, but these other data sources are still there and are mostly
unaffected. (Note that this is also true outside of the UK.)

I don't know exactly how to address that. It seems like the main options are
avoiding interacting with the institutions that create the records, persuading
them to retain much less information about people, trying to get dramatically
greater legal protection for other kinds of third-party records, or some kind
of major cultural shift where institutions fear turning data over or
governments fear requesting it.

Also, some datasets might exist partly because companies are legally required
to retain certain records, so even if they didn't want to know that much about
you, they may be mandated by law to have some of this information.

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adekok
Does anyone think that the law will be applied here? i.e. does breaking the
law result in legal punishment?

I no longer believe that "ignorance of the law is no excuse."

If the judges, policemen, government agents, etc. aren't held accountable for
breaking the law (or not knowing it), then I should not be held accountable,
either.

The alternative is one where the enforcers of the legal system break it with
impunity, while the peasants (that's us!) suffer under the full weight of the
law, and of the government enforcement thereof.

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libeclipse
Two ways they can avoid breaking the law in the future:

1) Stop unlawfully collecting data.

2) Pass into law a bill that would make it legal.

Which do you think they'll do?

