The home secretary, Theresa May, has revised some elements of her controversial “snooper’s charter” legislation in an attempt to address criticism by MPs and peers of the surveillance powers it confers.

Home Office sources say the revised bill, to be published on Tuesday, will reflect a majority of the 129 recommendations made by three parliamentary committees in reports published over the last three weeks.

The committees called for a fundamental rewrite of the draft investigatory powers bill, for privacy safeguards to be made the backbone of the legislation and for safeguards to be created against new powers to track everyone’s web browsing histories – known as internet connection records. The bill will not meet demands that the most intrusive snooping operations should be authorised by a judge – and not by a minister as is the case at present.

The Home Office’s proposed changes include

• six codes of practice setting out how the security services will use the powers in the bill, including access to personal communications data, state computer hacking and bulk acquisition of data.

• stronger privacy safeguards including the need for a senior judge to approve security service access to a journalist’s communications data. The Home Office said this was needed to ensure the willingness of sources to provide information to journalists.

• a “double-key” ministerial warrant backed by judicial approval when UK security services ask foreign intelligence agencies to undertake work on their behalf.

• a pragmatic approach to encryption that will require technology companies to remove encryption that they have themselves applied where it is practicable for them to do so.

• the period for “urgent” warrants issued for the most intrusive surveillance without judicial approval is to be reduced from five to three days.

A Home Office source said: “We have considered the committees’ reports carefully and the bill we are bringing forward today reflects the majority of their recommendations. We have strengthened safeguards, enhanced privacy protections and bolstered oversight arrangements.

“This is world-leading legislation, setting out in unprecedented detail the powers available to the police and security services to gather and access communications and communications data, subject to a robust regulatory regime.”

The revised bill commits to working with industry to retain internet connection records but does not provide judicial oversight of this new power.

The changes are unlikely to go far enough to satisfy political critics and privacy campaigners who have called for the 299-page “snooper’s charter” to be split so that full parliamentary scrutiny can be undertaken.



The bill has been introduced after disclosure of the security services’ mass surveillance capabilities by whistleblower Edward Snowden and was published in draft form before Christmas to allow for a short period of pre-legislative scrutiny.



MPs and peers were particularly critical of new powers requiring internet and phone companies to store everyone’s web-browsing histories – known as internet connection records – for 12 months, saying the case for it had not been made and the cost and other practical implications had not been worked out.

The parliamentary intelligence and security committee said that privacy safeguards needed to be made the backbone of the legislation rather than treated as an “add-on”.

Other criticisms of the earlier draft of the bill from the parliamentary committees included:



the description of security service capabilities – computer hacking and collecting bulk data – was too broad and lacked clarity



it failed to provide a comprehensive framework for surveillance powers as it did not include undercover police surveillance, nor computer hacking for attack purposes



the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, David Anderson QC, called for judicial authorisation of the intrusive surveillance warrants but the scrutiny committee endorsed the government’s “dual key” approach with more resources for judicial commissioners.



Privacy campaigners are sceptical that the revised bill will meet their concerns: “We are gravely concerned that the significant flaws within the bill will not have been addressed,” said a spokesman for the Don’t Spy on Us coalition.

“We understand the government’s desire to to pass the investigatory powers bill before December 2016 when the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act (Dripa) sunset clause expires.

“We believe that the best way to address this would be to split the bill. The data retention powers that are affected by the imminent sunset clause could be published as a stand-alone bill and dealt with in the relevant time frame. This would enable full consideration to be given to the committees’ recommendations and scrutiny of the remaining powers.”

The bill is expected to be given a Commons second reading on 14 March and sent to the House of Lords before the end of April in order to get it on to the statute book before a 31 December deadline.