Regulating Surveillance after Snowden: The UK Investigatory Powers Act as a Site of Struggle over Datafication

In the era of datafication, governance is increasingly based on data collection and analysis, and the monitoring and categorization of citizens are expanding. The revelations by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden have illustrated the scale and extent of digital surveillance, and they have led to debates over the necessary regulatory environment of data collection. In the UK, this resulted in a policy reform process and the adoption of a comprehensive new surveillance law, the Investigatory Powers Act. In this paper, I will trace the forces and dynamics that have shaped this particular policy response, and I will thereby explore the emerging struggles over the policy environment of datafication. The analysis will address the intersection of multiple sites and actors. The ‘sites’ include laws and regulations, national and international norms, court rulings, and public opinion. The ‘actors’ encompass governments and parliamentarians, the business sector, security agencies and law enforcement, and civil society. I will investigate how the interplay of different interests and capabilities of influence has led to a specific form of policy change in one of the countries most affected by the Snowden leaks. As I will argue, a combination of specific government compositions, the strong role of security agendas and discourses, media justification and a muted reaction by the public led to a new legal framework that expands data collection and prevented a more fundamental review of surveillance practices. This paper is based on findings from a set of interviews with policy experts and stakeholders, which were conducted in late 2015 and early 2016 as part of a 2-year research project on the infrastructures, policies and understandings of digital citizenship in a post-Snowden era.