Theresa May MP (Conservative) MP for Maidenhead, Prime Minister and former Home Secretary. Member of EURIM. She has a MA in Geography from Oxford University. Theresa worked in the banking industry before becoming an MP.

Electronic Voting

House of Commons debate Business of the House 3 May 2007

internet experts have described security for online voting pilots as "catastrophically weak". Can we have a debate on electoral fraud?

Communications Data Bill

As Home Secretary, was responsible for introducing the Communications Data Bill

“The people who say they’re against this bill need to look victims of serious crime, terrorism and child sex offences in the eye and tell them why they’re not prepared to give the police the powers they need to protect the public. Anybody who is against this bill is putting politics before people’s lives."^[1]

As part of a debate on 08/01/2013 regarding the disappearance of Ibrahima Magag, May cited the necessity to

improve and develop the ability of the agencies to have access to communications data. That, if I might gently remind my hon. Friend, is not about intercepting data. Intercept of data is a separate issue under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, but it is true that we need access to that communications data. As terrorists and others—organised criminals, paedophiles and others—use new means to communicate, it is important that the Government have access to the communications data from those new means of communications.^[2]

She also referred to the Communications Data Bill and the recent pre-legislative scrutiny it underwent

the report contained a number of recommendations, and we will accept the substance of all of them. We are currently working on the details. This includes talking to the industry, and discussions about the costs started before Christmas. We will obviously look carefully at those discussions, but it would not be right to opine on the question of the costs until we have spoken to all those in the industry that we wish to consult.^[3]

Theresa May updated her vision for a Communications Bill in June, 2014.

legislation is now a matter of "life and death" and that "we must keep on making the case until we get the changes we need". In her speech she declared there was no surveillance state. She said that "the real problem is not that we have built an over-mighty state but that the state is finding it harder to fulfil it's most basic duty,which is to protect the public. That is why I have said before and go on saying that we need to make changes to the law to maintain the capabilities we need.

Statements on Internet regulation

Theresa May made a series of statements regarding the Internet regulation following the terrorist attack in the London Bridge area on 4 June 2017.

"Second we cannot allow this ideology the safe space it needs to breed. Yet that is precisely what the internet and the big companies that provide internet-based services provide. We need to work with allied democratic governments to reach international agreements that regulate cyberspace to prevent the spread of extremist and terrorism planning and we need to do everything we can at home to reduce the risk of extremism online."^[4]

Links

References

[1] ttp://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/4678082/Track-crime-on-net-or-well-see-more-people-die.html

[2] ttp://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2013-01-08a.161.0&s=internet#g165.4

[3] ttp://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2013-01-07c.17.1#g17.5

[4] Theresa May's statement on 4 June 2017

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