UK plans to introduce new Web snooping law

A U.K. counterterrorism bill would require ISPs to retain IP addresses in order to identify individual users of Internet services.

The proposed law is meant to bridge a “capabilities gap” that authorities face when trying to obtain communications data, said U.K. Home Secretary Theresa May, who introduced the bill, in a speech on Monday. The measures will build on emergency legislation that the U.K. introduced during the summer, May said, who added that “it is not a knee-jerk response to a sudden perceived threat.”

The measures include a requirement for ISPs to supply information allowing law enforcement to match an IP address to the person using a service. In July, the U.K. government pushed through the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act (DRIPA), an emergency surveillance law. DRIPA replaced earlier legislation that the European Union court said interfered with fundamental privacy rights.

The new IP retention requirement proposed by May also builds on the Communications Data Bill that was blocked in April 2013 by the Liberal Democrats because they found it unworkable and disproportionate to the problems it sought to address. Better known as the “snoopers’ charter,” that bill would have required British ISPs and telecom providers to retain records of users’ browsing activity and social media communications, among other things, and store them for law enforcement purposes.