LONDON – Labour have told PM David Cameron it's time he 'got serious' about issues around cyber security, online crime and data sharing – ahead of a key meeting between politicians and security chiefs.
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said major reforms are needed to the oversight of British intelligence agencies, during a speech to left-leaning think-tank Demos on Monday.
She said "out-of-date" existing legislation needed to be overhauled to enable police and intelligence agencies to tackle the dissemination of child pornography and terrorist material online.
But any new legal provisions had to go hand-in-hand with measures to protect sensitive data, including personal communications, she insisted.
Cooper said the government hadn't done enough to foster public debate on cyber issues in the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations.
Instead she accused the Coalition of "burying its head in the sand and hoping these issues will go away."
Cooper said: "The oversight and legal frameworks are now out of date. We need major reforms to oversight and a thorough review of the legal framework to keep up with changing technology.
"And there are difficult wider challenges about privacy, data and the private sector, and how we protect British citizens' interests in a global internet where everyone follows different rules.
"Above all we need the Government to engage in a serious public debate about these new challenges and the reforms that are needed. Online communication and technology is forcing us to think again about our traditional frameworks for balancing privacy and safety, liberty and security.
"The Government can't keep burying its head in the sand and hoping these issues will go away – they are too important for that, for our liberty, our security, the growth of our economy and the health of our democracy."
Cooper said the leaking of hundreds of thousands of classified British GCHQ and American intelligence documents by former US National Security Agency contractor Snowden "raises serious concern about the impact on national security and about the scale of activity of intelligence agencies all at the same time."
Cooper warned: "Technological developments have sparked a wave of new types of crime and a 30% hike in recorded online fraud is just the "tip of the iceberg.
"Perhaps most serious of all has been the growth in online child abuse.
"Last year the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Agency received 18,887 reports of child abuse - an increase of 14% on the year.
"The police and security services have been under pressure to explain why they didn't know more about the murderers of Drummer Lee Rigby, and why more is not being done to disrupt the use of the internet by violent extremists looking to radicalise young people.
She added: "At the same time the new NHS database has just stalled due to public and GP
anxiety about the privacy safeguards.
"These issues - online crime, private sector data storage, intelligence operations - are often treated as separate.
"Yet all raise the same fundamental questions about how we sustain both liberty and security in a digital age."
Cooper's challenge came just a few days after the Home Affairs Committee announced its decision to summon the Intelligence Services Commissioner to give evidence.
Papers ordering Rt Hon Sir Mark Waller to appear on March 18 were delivered to Waller's office at midday last Thursday, after he refused previous attempts to question him.
In a statement on the committee's official website its chair, Labour MP Keith Vaz, said:
"The Intelligence Services Commissioner plays a vital role in keeping under review the way in which the Home Secretary and the intelligence services use the powers which they have been granted by Parliament.
"This function was conferred on the Commissioner by Act of Parliament, and Sir Mark must be accountable to Parliament for the way in which he carries it out."
Vaz added: "Both the Information Commissioner and the Interception of Communications Commissioner have accepted invitations to give evidence to the Committee in the last few weeks.
"We do not see why the Intelligence Services Commissioner should be any different and the Committee was disappointed by his refusal to attend.
"We have therefore taken the unusual step of summoning Sir Mark. This happens only very rarely, where an essential witness declines to appear in response to an invitation.
"Indeed, it is the only time that this Committee has summoned a witness in this Parliament."
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