The British parliament has approved a controversial bill which provides new bulk surveillance powers to police and intelligence services that critics have condemned as the most intrusive of any Western country.
The Investigatory Powers Bill is one of the measures the UK parliament passed this week that requires Internet and phone companies to store customers’ communication history for up to a year and allow authorities to access them for investigations.
The bill also allows the government to force phone-makers to hack into people’s handsets. It is likely to be enforced in a matter of weeks.
Edward Snowden, the former US intelligence officer turned whistleblower, said the powers “went further than many autocracies.”
“The UK has just legalized the most extreme surveillance in the history of western democracy,” he wrote in a Twitter post.
The legislation was passed by the House of Lords, the upper house of the parliament, and now only needs…