GNI’s Executive Director Judith Lichtenberg, Board Chair Mark Stephens and Associate Professor Andrew K. Woods met with representatives from the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Home Office, and the Cabinet Office in October.
They discussed the impact the Investigatory Powers Bill (IPB) will have on privacy and free expression rights, and the concern that authoritarian governments will use any extra-territorial powers in the Bill as a model for their own laws.
The IPB is expected to be released in early November.
In the meetings, GNI also stressed the need for governments to reform and invest in the antiquated mutual legal assistance (MLA) system to allow efficient and transparent law enforcement requests for cross-border data.
Andrew Wood’s report for GNI on reform of the MLA system is “Data Beyond Borders: Mutual Legal Assistance in the Internet Age.”