THE Home Office has quietly adopted a new plan to allow police across Britain routinely to hack into people's personal computers without a warrant.
The move, which follows a decision by the European Union’s council of ministers in Brussels, has angered civil liberties groups and opposition MPs. They described it as a sinister extension of the surveillance state which drives “a coach and horses” through privacy laws.

The hacking is known as “remote searching”. It allows police or MI5 officers who may be hundreds of miles away to examine covertly the hard drive of someone’s PC at his home, office or hotel room.

Material gathered in this way includes the content of all e-mails, web-browsing habits and instant messaging.

Under the Brussels edict, police across the EU have been given the green light to expand the implementation of a rarely used power involving warrantless intrusive surveillance of private property. The strategy will allow French, German and other EU forces to ask British officers to hack into someone’s UK computer and pass over any material gleaned.

A remote search can be granted if a senior officer says he “believes” that it is “proportionate” and necessary to prevent or detect serious crime - defined as any offence attracting a jail sentence of more than three years.

However, opposition MPs and civil liberties groups say that the broadening of such intrusive surveillance powers should be regulated by a new act of parliament and court warrants.

They point out that in contrast to the legal safeguards for searching a suspect’s home, police undertaking a remote search do not need to apply to a magistrates’ court for a warrant.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, the human rights group, said she would challenge the legal basis of the move. “These are very intrusive powers – as intrusive as someone busting down your door and coming into your home,” she said.

“The public will want this to be controlled by new legislation and judicial authorisation. Without those safeguards it’s a devastating blow to any notion of personal privacy.”

She said the move had parallels with the warrantless police search of the House of Commons office of Damian Green, the Tory MP: “It’s like giving police the power to do a Damian Green every day but to do it without anyone even knowing you were doing it.”

Richard Clayton, a researcher at Cambridge University’s computer laboratory, said that remote searches had been possible since 1994, although they were very rare. An amendment to the Computer Misuse Act 1990 made hacking legal if it was authorised and carried out by the state.

He said the authorities could break into a suspect’s home or office and insert a “key-logging” device into an individual’s computer. This would collect and, if necessary, transmit details of all the suspect’s keystrokes. “It’s just like putting a secret camera in someone’s living room,” he said.

Police might also send an e-mail to a suspect’s computer. The message would include an attachment that contained a virus or “malware”. If the attachment was opened, the remote search facility would be covertly activated. Alternatively, police could park outside a suspect’s home and hack into his or her hard drive using the wireless network.

Police say that such methods are necessary to investigate suspects who use cyberspace to carry out crimes. These include paedophiles, internet fraudsters, identity thieves and terrorists.

The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) said such intrusive surveillance was closely regulated under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. A spokesman said police were already carrying out a small number of these operations which were among 194 clandestine searches last year of people’s homes, offices and hotel bedrooms.

“To be a valid authorisation, the officer giving it must believe that when it is given it is necessary to prevent or detect serious crime and (the) action is proportionate to what it seeks to achieve,” Acpo said.

Dominic Grieve, the shadow home secretary, agreed that the development may benefit law enforcement. But he added: “The exercise of such intrusive powers raises serious privacy issues. The government must explain how they would work in practice and what safeguards will be in place to prevent abuse.”

The Home Office said it was working with other EU states to develop details of the proposals.

The test for a general search warrant under the ASIO Act is if the Minister is satisfied that there
are reasonable grounds for believing that access by the Organisation to records or other things
on particular premises will substantially assist the collection of intelligence in accordance
with the ASIO Act in respect of a matter that is important in relation to security (subsection
25(2).
Under the general search warrant power contained in paragraph 25(4)(d), ASIO can remove and
retain records for the purposes of making copies or inspecting the records.
Under subsection 25(5), if the Minister considers it appropriate in the circumstances, he or she
can specify in a warrant any of the following things:
(a) where there is reasonable cause to believe that data relevant to the security matter may
be accessible by using a computer or other electronic equipment found on the subject
premises—using the computer or other electronic equipment for the purpose of
obtaining access to any such data and, if necessary to achieve that purpose, adding,
deleting or altering other data in the computer or other electronic equipment;
(b) using the computer or other electronic equipment to do any of the following:
(i)
inspecting and examining any data to which access has been obtained;
(ii)
converting any data to which access has been obtained, that appears to be relevant
to the collection of intelligence by the Organisation in accordance with this Act,
into documentary form and removing any such document;
(iii)
copying any data to which access has been obtained, that appears to be relevant to
the collection of intelligence by the Organisation in accordance with this Act, to a
storage device and removing the storage device;
(c) any thing reasonably necessary to conceal the fact that any thing has been done under
the warrant;
(d) any other thing reasonably incidental to any of the above. (Emphasis added)
Paragraph 25(5)(a) enables data to be deleted only for the purpose of accessing the computer.
Under subsection 25(6), these warrants will not authorise:
the addition, deletion or alteration of data, or the doing of any thing, that interferes with,
interrupts or obstructs the lawful use of the computer or other electronic equipment by other
persons, or that causes any loss or damage to other persons lawfully using the computer or
other electronic equipment.

The Minister is only to issue the warrant if he or she is satisfied that there are reasonable
grounds for believing that access by the Organisation to data held in a particular computer
(the target computer) will substantially assist the collection of intelligence in accordance
with this Act in respect of a matter (the security matter) that is important in relation to
security.