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posted by janrinok on Wednesday June 03 2015, @02:31PM   Printer-friendly
from the everyone-is-doing-it dept.

A top secret report to the British prime minister has recommended that a new international treaty be negotiated to force the cooperation of the big US internet companies in sharing customers' personal data, the Guardian has learned.

Privacy campaigners said the decision to classify the report, written by the former diplomat Sir Nigel Sheinwald, as top secret was designed to bury it and said its key recommendation for an international treaty could provide a legal, front-door alternative to the government's renewed "snooper's charter" surveillance proposals.

It is believed the former British ambassador to Washington concluded that such a treaty could overcome US laws that prevent web giants based there, including Facebook, Google, Twitter, Microsoft and Yahoo, from sharing their customers' private data with British police and security services. It would also mean not having to revive the powers – which require British phone companies to share data from the US giants passing over their networks – from the 2012 communications data bill that would enforce their compliance.

Jim Killock of the Open Rights Group said: "The Sheinwald report should be published. Any attempt to hide it can only be interpreted as an attempt to close down debate about whether the snooper's charter is really needed. A new international treaty is the right approach to cross-border requests for data by law enforcement agencies. This approach undermines Theresa May's claim that there is a need for a new snooper's charter when there is a simple, transparent and workable solution."

But the Cabinet Office defended its decision to keep the report secret [sic]. It said Shinewald "reports on progress to the prime minister but... is not undertaking a public review". The Guardian understands the report has been classified as top secret by the Cabinet Office because it goes into the detail of each company's operations. Shinewald was appointed by Cameron in September 2014 as his special envoy on intelligence and law enforcement data sharing.


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  • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday June 04 2015, @06:04AM

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Thursday June 04 2015, @06:04AM (#191933) Journal

    Forcing cooperation? If it is forced, it's not cooperation, is it?

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
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