Rachel Logan, Amnesty UK’s Legal Programme Director, said:

“The UK government has managed to sneak these incredibly sweeping surveillance powers onto the books with very little fanfare.

“The spooks are now free to go through everyone’s communications, even without reasonable suspicion, and 48 public bodies - from the tax man to the local council - will also get access to your internet browsing history. All that with only minimal independent oversight.

“It’s not only the UK government asking you to ‘trust us’ it’s also any government they decide to share it with, like the USA. It’s hardly surprising there seems to be a late-in-the-day panic about what that could mean given that recent political events have shown how quickly power can shift, and with it public trust in government use of our data.”