This needs to be resisted. A nearly-identical law, the Recording and Interception of Communications Act (RICA), was enacted in 2002 in South Africa. While in t

This needs to be resisted. A nearly-identical law, the Recording and Interception of Communications Act (RICA), was enacted in 2002 in South Africa. While in theory it contained all the legal protections that have been proposed for the UK legislation, in practice it has been badly abused. Between 2006 and 2010 just one of the South African government's regional interception centres (of which there are at least four and potentially many more) carried out over 3 million legal interceptions, a number which is known to have increased since then. Subsequent leaks to the media have revealed that even this is a drop in the ocean; illegal interceptions are performed routinely and are easily hidden from oversight amongst the millions of legal interceptions performed every year. Looking at the numbers involved, it's not unreasonable to assume that every single connected South African will have their communications intercepted at some point, sometimes in illegal interceptions with no official control over the data collected. In fact, there have been examples of staff inside the interception centres being bribed by business rivals, spouses and others to spy on innocent citizens. I see no reason why the UK will be immune to these types of abuses, despite having a less corruptible civil service. This kind of power in the hands of poorly-monitored government intelligence agencies is always a bad idea.