Jun 25, 2025
The UK government is quietly advancing sweeping changes to digital surveillance laws through proposed amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill—most notably, a new clause labeled NC63. This provision, still under parliamentary consideration, would empower senior police officers to authorize the extraction of online account data from lawfully seized devices like smartphones and laptops. Unlike current legal frameworks, this would not require prior judicial oversight. Instead, if an officer believes the data is relevant to an investigation and can't be obtained by other means, they can greenlight access to everything from cloud storage and messaging apps to email and banking platforms. This includes intercepting two-factor authentication codes, giving authorities near-total access to digital lives with minimal checks.
Civil liberties organizations have sounded the alarm, calling the move a drastic expansion of state power over private information. Groups like Privacy International and the Open Rights Group warn that these amendments could turn routine police seizures into digital fishing expeditions, with vague guidelines and little independent scrutiny. The proposed changes risk sweeping up sensitive personal data—not just of suspects, but potentially of third parties as well. While framed as necessary for national security and crime prevention, critics argue that this framework—lacking robust oversight—undermines long-standing privacy protections and hands unprecedented control over personal digital content to the state.
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SOURCE: Reclaim the Net