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wantkitteh writes:

The BBC reports on the forthcoming pieces of legislation announced on behalf of the ruling Conservative party by the Queen in her speech to parliament yesterday. Among the bills is the re-introduction of the "Communications and Data Bill", the spiritual successor to the controversial Snoopers Charter:

The Queen's Speech on 27 May will set out the the [sic] government's legislative plans for the parliamentary session ahead. What can we expect to feature?

Communications and Data Bill

This was the bill that the Conservatives' smaller coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, refused to back in the last Parliament. Current [surveillance] legislation expires in 2016 and will have to be renewed. So now the Conservatives are governing alone, they can bring back what opponents call the snoopers' charter. The previous plans proposed to extend the range of data communications companies have to store for 12 months. It would have included, for the first time, details of messages sent on social media, webmail, voice calls over the internet and gaming, in addition to emails and phone calls. Officials would not have been able to see the content of the messages without a warrant. Currently communications firms only retain data about who people send emails to, and who they ring.

The European Court of Justice previously overturned Europe-wide legislation that allowed less invasive surveillance than the Snoopers Charter is aiming for, passed shortly after the terrorist bombings in London and Madrid in 2006. Prime Minister David Cameron locked horns with then-Deputy PM Nick Clegg on the issue, initially causing a three-month deadlock that culminated in widely criticised "emergency" legislation being passed in 2014 to legitimise ongoing surveillance initiatives, then again in January of this year when Cameron attempted to reintroduce the Communications and Data Bill, citing the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris as justification.