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Hackers could expose the private web-browsing habits of every computer user in Britain if the new Snooper’s Charter goes ahead, experts have warned.

Cyber-blackmail gangs could steal ‘web-log’ data from phone and internet firms to humiliate people or extort cash in return for keeping their browsing habits secret, online security chiefs told the Mirror.

It follows the theft last week of bank details and personal information from millions of TalkTalk customers .

“The phone companies cannot keep this stuff secret,” said Prof Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering at Cambridge University ’s computer laboratory.

Police are demanding new powers to access people’s web browsing histories as part of the Investigatory Powers Bill - dubbed a Snooper’s Charter - due to be published by Home Secretary Theresa May next week.

(Image: Getty)

The proposal would force internet providers like BT and TalkTalk to store details of their customers’ every online move on huge databases for up to a year, in case cops demanded details.

But experts say the recent hack of TalkTalk shows such sensitive personal data would be highly vulnerable to cyber-crime gangs and blackmailers.

Prof Anderson led a successful campaign back in the late 1990s to stop similar measures becoming law.

“The Home Office have learnt nothing,” he said. “They are like World War One generals, trying to fight the same battle again and again.

"This is highly valuable, highly sensitive data and you cannot leave it to firms like BT and TalkTalk to look after it.

“If you are one of the big ISPs (internet service providers) in Britain you are considered to be a legitimate target.”

The security services and the police say the laws need to be updated to take into account advances in technology.

A report earlier this year by David Anderson, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said the intelligence agencies should have the power to carry out “bulk collection” as long as there were strict safeguards.

(Image: PA)

This would allow them to monitor with official approval not just emails and texts but new forms of communication such as apps and social media.

Mr Anderson said the new powers could help in the fight against terrorism as well as cyber-attacks, fraud, kidnap and child sexual exploitation.

Mrs May has yet to make a final decision on how far to bow to Scotland Yard’ s demands.

She is considering a compromise deal to give cops the power to make specific requests about whether people visited a certain website, but not wholesale access to their entire web history.

But critics say simply by forcing internet firms to store people’s web browsing data on their servers for a year, Ministers are leaving it open to hacking and extortion.

In a major report for the Home Office in June, David Anderson QC, the Government’s independent reviewer of terror laws, warned web-browsing histories could be used to show “a user has visited a pornography site, or a site for sufferers of a particular medical condition”.

(Image: Stephen Dorey)

And he said no other Western country has passed such a draconian snooping law.

“I am not aware of other European or Commonwealth countries in which service providers are compelled to retain their customers’ web logs for inspection by law enforcement,” he said.

“I was told by law enforcement in Canada and in the US that there would be constitutional difficulties in such a proposal.”

Mr Anderson called on Mrs May to give “full consideration to alternative means” before bringing forward such an intrusive law.

The Home Office is refusing to comment on the detail of the Bill before it is laid before the House of Commons next week.

But the Home Secretary and security services have embarked on an unprecedented PR push to convince people of the need for sweeping new powers.

Last week sympathetic journalists were given unprecedented access to online snoops at GCHQ while the head of MI5 , Andrew Parker, recently gave his first ever live broadcast interview to the BBC.

And in a carefully-timed speech on Wednesday Mr Parker claimed the threat from jihadis is the highest he has ever seen.

“Our ability to access and analyse data is more important than ever before," he said.

(Image: PA)

Mrs May will give a series of high-profile interviews this weekend to make her own pitch for new powers.

Meanwhile a second teenage boy has been arrested in connection with the alleged TalkTalk cyber attack .

The Metropolitan Police’s specialist cyber crime unit raided the home of the 16-year-old from Feltham, west London.

The teen was arrested on suspicion of Computer Misuse Act offences on Thursday and has since been bailed.