Stop the Snooper’s Charter

The Open Rights Group is jointly hosting an event on the Communications Data Bill with Index on Censorship in London from 2.00 pm to 6.00 pm on Saturday, November 24 2012.

The venue is the Free Word Centre, 60 Farringdon Road, London EC1R (map).

This event will gather campaigners and activists to explore and explain the Communications Data Bill in detail, with keynote speaker Cory Doctorow. Civil Liberties groups will be working together to plan joint campaign actions, including a mass lobbying of MPs when the bill is published.

The “Snooper’s Charter” – aka the Communications Data Bill – was announced in the Queen’s speech in May 2012. The Bill proposes new powers that would allow the Government to order the collection of a lot more information about who people communicate with online. Information about UK citizens’ use of services like Google, Facebook or Twitter would be collected and accessible too easily to those working for law enforcement.

The Bill as it stands will lead to too much information being collected about too many people. Access to that information will be too easy. This will result in accidental or deliberate misuse of the data leading to significant privacy harms.

The Snooper’s Charter is currently being looked at by a committee of MPs and Lords. The ORG, amongst others, has been telling them that they want to see the powers to collect and access communications data tightened up, not extended ever further.

Registration for the event is free (Eventbrite).