The UK government has set in train plans to introduce legislation requiring tech companies to let it know when they plan to introduce new security technologies and could potentially force them to disable when required.
The measures were announced just minutes ago in the King's Speech – when the country's monarch reads out a speech that is written by the ruling political party, marking the start of the parliamentary year. They could mean the Home Office get advance access to technical details of security measures employed by popular big tech platforms so it can access user data and monitor nefarious activity.
In guidance notes to the legislative program [
PDF], the government said the Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill would reform the "notices regime," so it could anticipate the risk to public safety posed by the "rolling out of technology by multinational companies that precludes lawful access to data." The government claimed getting forward notice of security technologies would "reduce the risk of the most serious offences such as child sexual exploitation and abuse or terrorism."
The Bill is also set to update the conditions for use of Internet Connections Records held by service providers. The government said new measures would "ensure that these can be used effectively to detect the most serious types of criminal activity and national security threats, underpinned by a robust independent oversight regime."
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