Digital Bill of Rights (Early Day Motion)

On Wednesday 11 December 2013, Tim Farron MP suggested the creation of a Digital Bill of Rights under the Early day motion (EDM). EDMs work as petitions for non-ministerial MPs and are usually used as a way to bring subjects to focus for debate .

The current sponsors of the motion are: , Julian Huppert MP, Peter Bottomley MP, Mark Durkan, Tom Watson MP and David Davis MP.

The motion's intentions are described in the following:

"That this House notes the recent open statement signed by Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, LinkedIn, Twitter and AOL calling for reform of government surveillance; welcomes their calls for reform to restore the public's trust in the internet; supports the five principles they identify about limiting governments' authority to collect users' information, oversight and accountability, transparency about government demands, respecting the free flow of information, and avoiding conflicts among governments; agrees that they form a sensible basis for reform of digital rights; and calls on the Government to support their statement and make reforms that ensure that government surveillance efforts are clearly restricted by law, proportionate to the risks, transparent and subject to independent oversight."