The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has warned the Snooper's Charter contains three clauses that could compel companies to hack their own technology while preventing them from revealing to the public what is going on.

The campaign group's comments come in the midst of an ongoing court battle in the US between Apple and the FBI, where the law enforcement agency is trying to force the company to build custom code to bypass security measures on an iPhone.

The EFF, however, has warned that the Investigatory Powers Bill (IPB), as the Snooper's Charter is properly called, could be even more of a threat to privacy and security than what is being asked of Apple by the FBI.

In a blog post, EFF's international director Danny O'Brien claimed the IPB already contains clauses that could force tech companies to re-engineer their own technology, as the FBI is requesting of Apple, and that these would be accompanied by a gag order.

"If the law passes ... not only would Apple be expected to comply, but the IPB would insist that Tim Cook could not tell the public what was going on without breaking UK law," said O'Brien. "At least in the current fight between Apple and the US government, we're having the debate out loud and in public."