The Scottish National Party recently came in for criticism after it abstained from voting in the second reading of the Tory government's draft Investigatory Powers Bill, which is currently winding its way through parliament . Here, Gavin Newlands MP lays out his party's position, and urges fellow politicos to push for more clarity and safeguards in the home office's latest bid for a so-called Snoopers' Charter—legislation that would massively ramp up the surveillance of Brits' online activity.

I’d like to preface what follows by saying that I am by no means an IT expert or technologist by any stretch of the imagination. As Members of Parliament we are often asked to debate and scrutinise legislation outside of our own areas of expertise, and the Investigatory Powers Bill is such a case.

When you are scrutinising one of the most complex and important pieces of legislation in recent Westminster history, you are very reliant on—and grateful for—experts that explain various technical provisions within the bill to help understand whether they are possible, affordable, and potentially overly burdensome on the industry.

You also need to listen to the various agencies set out their case as to why they need these powers, and what these powers will enable them to do that they can’t do at the moment. All in order for us to judge whether or not the powers are necessary, proportionate, and in accordance with rule of law.

We in the SNP are not ignorant of world events, and we are fully aware of the challenges we face from increasingly sophisticated criminals and terrorists. We have said consistently that we support law enforcement and the security and intelligence agencies in having the powers they require in order to keep our communities safe.

But these powers must be subject to the most stringent checks and safeguards. Keeping people safe and secure is the primary function of government. But we take people’s civil liberties extremely seriously too. We could not be clearer that these powers should only be used when it is necessary and proportionate to do so.

Despite being given ample opportunity to do so in pre-legislative scrutiny, supporting materials and five weeks of line-by-line scrutiny during the bill’s committee stage, we regret that the UK government has yet to make a convincing case for many of the powers sought in the bill. Particularly in relation to Internet connection records (ICRs) and bulk powers.

Such justification will be required and the bill will need considerable revision, and further careful scrutiny before we could consider supporting it.

In significant respects it goes farther than any other government in the west has been prepared to go, for example, retention of ICRs. And in other respects it seeks to implement powers which have been tested and found wanting in other jurisdictions, for example, bulk powers in the USA.

Challenged PM at #PMQs to explain why he was against surveillance in opposition but was now pushing #IPbill in Gov'thttps://t.co/KfJIGNE9yS — Gavin Newlands MP (@GavinNewlandsMP) May 11, 2016

I spoke for the party on ICRs during the bill’s committee stage and followed this up with a question to the Prime Minister during PMQs. ICRs are essentially a record of every website visited by each and every one of us in the UK. These would be retained by ISPs, who had been served with a notice to do so, for a period of 12 months.

Putting aside civil liberties and data security, I’ll focus on the straightforward point of defining an ICR, after all you cannot be expected to scrutinise and pass such a large and intrusive power without having examined the specific information to be retained and their benefits to law enforcement and/or the intelligence services, can you?

Wrong! There is no clear definition whatever of an ICR, either on the face of the legislation, the codes of practice (as it currently stands), or in the supporting document that pertains to provide the supporting case for ICRs.

That, in our view, is completely unacceptable and we are not alone. Countless groups giving evidence to our committee and the joint IPB committee of the house—set up to consider the draft law—have been extremely critical of this.

The House of Commons science and technology select committee said: “The bill was intended to provide clarity to the industry, but the current drafts contain very broad and ambiguous definitions of ICRs, which are confusing communications providers. This must be put right for the bill to achieve its stated goals.”

This bill is far too important for such intrusive powers to remain “broad and ambiguous.” I have real concern with the erosion of civil liberties in this bill, and as I recently reminded the Prime Minister, so did he when he was campaigning to become PM.

He said the UK was fast becoming a “surveillance state,” that we had intrusive powers that would “cause concern in the most oppressive regimes,” and he promised “to sweep the whole rotten edifice away.” A few short years later he seeks to erode our privacy by yielding yet more powers to the police, public bodies and intelligence services.

Such information as is likely to be contained in an ICR is very intrusive data which could be used to profile or create assumptions about an individual’s life, connections, and behaviour. For example, it might reveal visits to pregnancy advice, mental health, or gay websites.

Additionally, significant doubts were expressed in the evidence to the committee as to whether such records will be useful in the way that the government say they will. The science and technology committee’s report sums up our opinion on the remaining issues with ICRs rather well. It succinctly says: “There remains questions about the feasibility of collecting and storing ICRs, including concerns about ensuring security for the records from hackers.”

The government has simply not dealt with these concerns at all.

Moreover, we are not convinced that we should go down this path which no other European country has followed other than Denmark and it went on to repeal its law as of limited use. We are not convinced that the home office has learned the lessons of the Danish model. The power to retain ICRs is incompatible with the right to privacy, and the protection of personal data, which are found in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

Neither the USA nor Canada have such powers, and Australia looked at it carefully recently before rejecting it. Do we really want to be the only country in the western world that documents its own citizens’ online activities?