Prime minister Theresa May wants to accelerate the Tories' plans to widen regulation of the Internet and slurp even more citizen data if Brits vote the party back into power next month.

The Conservatives' manifesto—published on Thursday—rattled off many chunks of tech and digital policy that have already been in play under a Tory government.

So, the pledge for public services to be "digital-by-default" was dusted off and reused; the Verify ID system for access to government services online is still being backed by the Conservatives despite serious issues with its deployment; and promises about speedier broadband and mobile coverage for all of the UK were also trotted out once again—even though many people across the country remain in the slow lane, seven years after the Tories first came to power.

On top of that, the Tory blueprint for the country's future—which May has said will be a very challenging time as the UK exits the European Union—routinely highlights policies that were already legislated for in the last parliament under the recently passed Digital Economy Act.

Investment in other tech policy areas, such as cyber security, also have the Conservatives stuck on repeat: the oft-spouted £1.9 billion funds set aside for beefing up how the government will tackle cyber crime over the coming years is included in the manifesto.

Here's the Tories' lengthy shopping list of what it plans to do for tech if re-elected to govern from June 9. Note that pre-announced promises, such as the R&D spending plans for electric cars or the £740m for 5G and fibre investment set aside by chancellor of the exchequer Philip Hammond in the autumn budget, aren't included here:

The next Conservative government will give Britain the technical education it has lacked for decades. This will take time but we must also address the immediate needs of those sectors of the economy suffering shortages in skills.

We will make the immigration system work for these sectors, whilst ensuring that we develop the skills we need for the future. We will therefore ask the independent Migration Advisory Committee to make recommendations to the government about how the visa system can become better aligned with our modern industrial strategy. We envisage that the committee’s advice will allow us to set aside significant numbers of visas for workers in strategically-important sectors, such as digital technology, without adding to net migration as a whole.

However, skilled immigration should not be a way for government or business to avoid their obligations to improve the skills of the British workforce. So we will double the Immigration Skills Charge levied on companies employing migrant workers, to £2,000 a year by the end of the parliament, using the revenue generated to invest in higher level skills training for workers in the UK.

We will pursue free trade with European markets, and secure new trade agreements with other countries. We want to work together in the fight against crime and terrorism, collaborate in science and innovation—and secure a smooth, orderly Brexit.

We will take up leadership in a new arena, where concern is shared around the world: we will be the global leader in the regulation of the use of personal data and the Internet.

We will establish new institutes of technology, backed by leading employers and linked to leading universities, in every major city in England. They will provide courses at degree level and above, specialising in technical disciplines, such as STEM, whilst also providing higher-level apprenticeships and bespoke courses for employers. We will explore teaching apprenticeships sponsored by major companies, especially in STEM subjects.

We expect GPs to come together to provide greater access, more innovative services, share data and offer better facilities, while ensuring care remains personal—particularly for older and more vulnerable people—with named GPs accountable for individual patients.

We will support GPs to deliver innovative services that better meet patients' needs, including phone and online consultations and the use of technology to triage people better so they see the right clinician more quickly. We will ensure appropriate funding for GPs to meet rising costs of indemnity in the short term while working with the profession to introduce a sustainable long-term solution.

We will empower patients, giving them a greater role in their own treatment and use technology to put care at their convenience. In addition to the digital tools patients already have, we will give patients, via digital means or over the phone, the ability to book appointments, contact the 111 service, order repeat prescriptions, and access and update aspects of their care records, as well as control how their personal data is used. We will continue to expand the number of NHS approved apps that can help monitor care and provide support for physical and mental health conditions.

A Conservative government will develop a digital charter, working with industry and charities to establish a new framework that balances freedom with protection for users, and offers opportunities alongside obligations for businesses and platforms. This charter has two fundamental aims: that we will make Britain the best place to start and run a digital business; and that we will make Britain the safest place in the world to be online.

will work to provide gigaspeed connectivity to as many businesses and homes as possible. We will introduce a full fibre connection voucher for companies across the country by 2018 and by 2022 we will have major fibre spines in over a hundred towns and cities, with 10 million premises connected to full fibre and a clear path to national coverage over the next decade.

We have similar ambitions for mobile phone coverage. By 2022 we will extend mobile coverage further to 95 per cent geographic coverage of the UK. By the same date, all major roads and main line trains will enjoy full and uninterrupted mobile phone signal, alongside guaranteed Wi-Fi Internet service on all such trains.

We will continue to release more spectrum from public sector use to allow greater private sector access and begin the roll-out of a new 5G network, providing gigaspeed connection to your smart phone. We plan to have the majority of the population covered by a 5G signal by 2027.

We will work with industry to introduce new protections for minors, from images of pornography, violence, and other age-inappropriate content not just on social media but in app stores and content sites as well. We will put a responsibility on industry not to direct users—even unintentionally—to hate speech, pornography, or other sources of harm.

We will make clear the responsibility of platforms to enable the reporting of inappropriate, bullying, harmful or illegal content, with take-down on a comply-or-explain basis.

We will continue to push the Internet companies to deliver on their commitments to develop technical tools to identify and remove terrorist propaganda, to help smaller companies build their capabilities and to provide support for civil society organisations to promote alternative and counter-narratives. In addition, we do not believe that there should be a safe space for terrorists to be able to communicate online and will work to prevent them from having this capability.

We will give people new rights to ensure they are in control of their own data, including the ability to require major social media platforms to delete information held about them at the age of 18, the ability to access and export personal data, and an expectation that personal data held should be stored in a secure way. To create a sound ethical framework for how data is used, we will institute an expert Data Use and Ethics Commission to advise regulators and parliament on the nature of data use and how best to prevent its abuse. The commission will help us to develop the principles and rules that will give people confidence that their data is being handled properly.

We will bring forward a new data protection law, fit for our new data age, to ensure the very best standards for the safe, flexible and dynamic use of data and enshrining our global leadership in the ethical and proportionate regulation of data. We will put the National Data Guardian for Health and Social Care on a statutory footing to ensure data security standards are properly enforced.

We will incubate more digital services within government and introduce digital transformation fellowships, so that hundreds of leaders from the world of tech can come into government to help deliver better public services. We will continue the drive for open data, maintaining our position as the world leader.

We will set out a strategy to rationalise the use of personal data within government, reducing data duplication across all systems, so that we automatically comply with the 'Once-Only' principle in central government services by 2022 and wider public services by 2025.

Brief analysis

It's not surprising to see the Conservative party recycling lots of polices that it has already been working on in government—and, for the electorate, it also makes for meatier promises than those already offered by Labour and the Lib Dems, even if many of the costings are missing from the Tory manifesto.

While PM May is radically abandoning the David Cameron years in areas such as education and pensions, her party seems to be on a similar path with its plans for the tech world, but there is a key departure, too: the Tories now want the Internet and technology in general to be further regulated. Its manifesto says:

The Internet is a global network and it is only by concerted global action that we can make true progress. We believe that the United Kingdom can lead the world in providing answers. So we will open discussions with the leading tech companies and other like-minded democracies about the global rules of the digital economy, to develop an international legal framework that we have for so long benefited from in other areas like banking and trade. We recognise the complexity of this task and that this will be the beginning of a process, but it is a task which we believe is necessary and which we intend to lead. By doing these things—a digital charter, a framework for data ethics, and a new international agreement—we will put our great country at the head of this new revolution; we will choose how technology forms our future; and we will demonstrate, even in the face of unprecedented change, the good that government can do.

If May gets to form a new government next month, then it would appear—in the midst of wrangling free from the EU—that the Tories will also be attempting a regulatory land grab of the online world. But, if the Conservatives' digital record is anything to go by, its pledge to negotiate an "international settlement" and be a "global leader" for an incredibly complex area of Internet and data law looks, frankly, like pie-in-the-sky stuff.