The British government last week passed a law that , in the words of Edward Snowden , allow for for “ the most extreme surveillance in the chronicle of Western democracy . ” Known as theInvestigatory Powers Act , or the Snooper ’s Charter , the note lets governance agencies get at huge amount of personal datum relating to all members of the public – but who just is allowed to spy on you under this new law , and what can they see ?

Strangely enough , the investigatory powers court – which is the only court that monitors MI5 , MI6 andGCHQ – ruled last calendar month that these agencies had been carry outillegal surveillancefor the past 17 yr . To make indisputable this does n’t carry on , the authorities settle just to legitimatize most of these surreptitious activities .

For case , the snoop ’s Charter give up government bodies to access bulk personal datasets ( BPDs ) , which let in details like fiscal transactions , medical track record , traveling system and communications . The bill also requires net service providers to keep a log of every drug user ’s shop history dating back 12 months , and to make these available to governing agency .

Theextensive listof organizations that can access this information hold in several law enforcement agency such as the various British police force power , as well as the Secret Intelligence Service , GCHQ and the Ministry of Defence .

Yet the list does n’t stop there , and goes on to name the likes of the Food Standards Agency , the Gambling Commission , the Department for Work and Pensions , and Her Majesty ’s Revenue and Customs , which deals with taxation .

The bill also cave in law enforcement agencies unprecedented powers to hack into people ’s devices , regardless of whether or not they are suspect of being involved in criminal or terrorist activities .

Alarmingly , communications operator are also required to remove all encryption for make it sluttish for government physical structure to access entropy . Unless some effective novel safeguards are put in place , this could get to the threshold forhackersto get hold of Brits ’ personal data with keen ease than ever before .

Unsurprisingly , activists and privacy advocates have been strident in their opposition to the human activity , withOpen Rights Group conductor Jim Killocklabelling it the " most utmost surveillance law ever passed in a commonwealth . ”