GCHQ Director: One Warrant Can Be Used to Hack a Whole Intelligence Agency

The United Kingdom’s intelligence agencies may soon get their hacking powers on a stronger legal footing. But a new report questions why certain warrants designed to hack multiple computers at once are even necessary, when their more targeted equivalents are arguably just as broad.

On Feb 9, the UK's Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament published its report on the draft Investigatory Powers Bill, a proposed piece of surveillance legislation. The Committee was told that so-called “targeted” hacking warrants were so broad, that they could be used to gather information on an entire foreign intelligence agency, raising concerns about what “bulk” warrants are designed for. If passed into law, the bill will force internet service providers to store the browsing history of their customers for 12 months. It will also update how some of the intelligence agencies' use of “equipment interference” (EI)—the UK government's term for hacking—is handled, and introduce the idea of “targeted” and “bulk” EI warrants.