The House of Lords unanimously passed the Data...

p14), meaning Thursday’s vote clears the bill to become law. DRIP would require Internet and phone companies to retain customer data for 12 months, replacing the EU data retention directive, recently felled by the European Court of Justice (CD July 14 p15). The bill, which has moved forward on an accelerated timeline, would also limit access to communications data, begin talks with the U.S. about cross-border data exchanges and launch a years-long review of British surveillance programs. The British government has argued the bill is necessary to effectively curtail crime, both foreign and domestic, while privacy advocates have countered the bill is a way to expand the government’s surveillance authority. “Instead of carefully reforming its surveillance powers, the U.K. government concocted an emergency to give it even wider access to the communications of millions of people at home and abroad,” said Izza Leghtas, Western Europe researcher at Human Rights Watch, after Thursday’s vote. “The British Parliament and public were denied the time to properly scrutinize this law, and there is no chance to overturn this appalling invasion of our privacy until 2016 at the earliest, if at all."