III. Challenges for the Police,
Security and Intelligence
Agencies
3.1
Chapter I describes the impact of the Internet and communications technology on British
society and both the challenges and benefits of becoming a digital society. In a recent
speech, Baroness Lane Fox of Soho, a member of the ISR Panel, suggested that ‘It is within
our reach for Britain to leapfrog every nation in the world and become the most digital,
most connected, most skilled, most informed on the planet.’1 Many would subscribe to
this vision, especially as the benefits of the digital era are increasingly apparent. But we
must also accept that in becoming the most digital and connected nation on the planet
there are costs and implications for our collective security and individual privacy – firstly,
as more of our personal and sensitive data is sent out across the Internet and, secondly,
as criminals, foreign governments and terrorists discover ever-more sophisticated ways
to exploit this.
3.2
The police and SIAs have had to adapt their strategy and approach to the digital era, a
change neatly summed up in a speech by Baroness Smith of Basildon, shadow leader of
the House of Lords:
Some people may look back with nostalgia to the Cold War, but the days when a man in a
gabardine mac and a trilby kept watch while his colleague unscrewed the telephone to install
a bug and hide a microphone in the plant pot have long gone. Those involved in terrorism,
or in serious and organised crimes like drug and people trafficking, international fraud, hard
core pornography, paedophilia and child sexual abuse, do so today with a sophistication and
technical knowledge that many of us would struggle to comprehend.2
3.3
The disclosures by Edward Snowden exposed some of this new tradecraft in 2013. These
raised a number of issues, including: the scale of the threat facing the UK from foreign
governments, terrorist organisations and criminals; the response by the police and the
SIAs to these threats; and the legislation that governs their actions. The disclosures also
raised serious questions about the oversight and accountability regime in the UK. The
ISR Panel was tasked with advising on the legality, effectiveness and privacy implications
of the UK surveillance programmes and also to make an assessment of how lawenforcement and intelligence capabilities can be maintained in the face of technological
change, while respecting principles of proportionality, necessity and privacy. The legality
of the programmes has been considered, including by the IPT, which has concluded that
1.
2.
Martha Lane Fox, speech delivered at the 2015 Richard Dimbleby Lecture, 30 March 2015.
Baroness Smith, Lords Hansard, Daily Hansard, Col. 305 (2 June 2015).