Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has moved to block a Draft Communication Bill amidst fears from civil liberties campaigners that it amounts to a snoopers charter.
Clegg said the plans, which would give police and security services unprecedented powers to monitor digital communications, needed a ‘fundamental rethink’.
The Home Office had touted the bill as a key tool in the fight against organised crime and terrorism but others saw it as a gross infringement of civil liberties.
It would have required internet service providers to store details of all internet traffic in the UK; including time, duration, originator and recipient as well as the location from of the device from which communication was made.
The content of such messages would remain unreadable however unless the police could present a ‘clear case’ to do so.
A committee of MPs castigated the plans, remarking: “The figure for estimated benefits is even less reliable than that for costs, and the estimated net benefit figure is fanciful and misleading.
"We believe that the draft bill pays insufficient attention to the duty to respect the right to privacy."
Clegg intends to push for an amended system which gets ‘the balance between security and civil liberty right’