It was widely reported in January of this year (2009) that the Home Office of the British Government had adopted a plan to permit the police to hack personal computers.
Background
In fact, the legislation covering this - RIPA (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act) - has been in place since 2000. What has changed is that the European Union has made it possible for other states within the union to request a remote search, as this type of surveillance is known.
It was stated in The Times that “...police undertaking a remote search do not need to apply to a magistrates’ court for a warrant”. In reality, a magistrate would not have sufficient authority to grant a warrant. The power to authorise surveillance is limited to the Secretary of State or the Chief Constable of the force in question, and then only when the intrusion is in the interests of national security, the economic well-being of the UK or for preventing and detecting serious crime.
Why shouldn’t they?
A large proportion of websites install cookies on personal computers. Mostly these are used to remember the user’s preferences or login details. By way of this ‘innocent’ approach, however, many companies track browsing habits, collect logins etc. Even the Google search bar on your browser has the capability of recording and delivering such snippets of information.
If you ever watch your firewall’s log, you’ll see that all day, every day somebody is trying to get into your computer. These attempts are not well-intentioned and have a high enough success rate that the firewall designers constantly need to release security updates.
The point here is that there is no public outcry over the need to control intrusions from non-law enforcement sources. The Police, Customs & Excise and MI5 are unlikely to waste time hacking into your computer unless you are already of interest to them - the paperwork alone would make it not worthwhile.
Why should they?
To be able to effectively tackle crime and security issues, the police need to be on at least a level footing with their targets. The more comprehensive their knowledge of the subjects of their enquiries, the better equipped they are to deal with them. Computers and the internet have now become such a great part of everybody’s life that the security services simply cannot be denied the ability to investigate them when they find it necessary.
So, should the police be allowed to hack into our PCs?
Is this really a problem, given that the RIPA should prevent untargeted datafishing? At the same time, whatever the law says, speculative, unwarranted remote searching occurs - how can we legislate against the CIA, for instance?
More important is how to control commercial organisations that gather and manipulate personal information about us. Subscribing commercial organisations, as well as government bodies such as the Inland Revenue, are known to have access to information gathered through loyalty cards from supermarkets. In addition, these cards may now carry a chip known as a RFID (radio frequency identification) which can be used for accurate geographical tracking and location.
Sources used for this article