The Investigatory Powers Bills is a draconian bill designed to completely destroy the slither of privacy that UK citizens had.

Despite the mass disapproval of the bill, parliament has kindly told us "we don't care, we're better than you, we know what's good for you"

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173199

"The Petitions Committee decided not to debate this petition"

The Government is clear that, at a time of heightened security threat, it is essential our law enforcement, security and intelligence services have the powers they need to keep people safe.

Or in plain English

"the terrorists won, say goodbye to your privacy"

If you weren't aware, the RIPA bill requires all internet providers to retain 12 months of your internet activity (in comparison to mainland china where the requirements are only 6 months, and the rest of the EU where it's illegal), AND they have to provide it without warrant .

To top it off, they recently added an amendment which says "MPs are excluded from the spying" (MPs are our senators/congresspeople sort-of). That's right, the people who wrote the bill, are EXCLUDED from it!

Daily Dot: U.K. introduces most intrusive spying law in the 'history of Western democracy'

The first is the warrant-free bulk personal communications data and internet history collection: Every website, when it was visited, from where and on which device. This will be ongoing, whether an individual is a suspected criminal or not.

It's not just the Government that gets this data, it's every "agency" and "service" related to the government, including the NHS (our health service), the Food Standards Agency (oh come on, who designed this bill?), and the Northern Ireland Fire Service.

MOTHERBOARD: Even the Food Standards Agency Could Access UK Surveillance Data Under New Bill

Fortunately, many VPN providers are still trying to safeguard our privacy, such as Private Internet Access, who threatened to leave the UK if the situation gets any worse.

We will be working with the top tech lawyers and our datacenter partners in the UK to stay on top of the IP Bill as it starts being enforced. If things change for the worse, we are prepared to leave the UK as we did for Russia when similar draconian laws were passed and enforced.

Private Internet Access VPN response to Investigatory Powers Act

If you're a UK citizen, be sure to use a VPN as much as possible. Make sure to switch providers often, and if possible, use VPN servers outside of the UK to avoid timing-based traffic analysis that could ruin your VPN cover. TOR is also a good option.

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