"Open government"

"Open government"

"Open government" is a phrase used by politicians, generally making promises not to keep secret the affairs of state.

Publication of information on the WWW by UK government

In 2018, after losing a legal battle against human rights groups Reprieve and Privacy International, the UK government published an annex of the 2016 Investigatory Powers Act about criminal activity by employees of MI6. A single page PDF was published, containing a single scanned image of such low quality that it was difficult to read by humans and might not be indexed by search engines unable to decipher its text:

The section of the IPA, as published on March 1st, 2018 by the Investigatory Powers Commissioner's Office.

Investigatory Powers Act 2016

   Investigatory Powers Commissioner (Additional Directed Oversight Functions)
      (Security Service agent participation in criminality) Direction 2017

The Prime Minister, in exercise of the power conferred by section 230 of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 ("the Act), directs the Investigatory Powers Commissioner as follows:

Citation and Commencement

1. This direction may be cited as the Investigatory Powers Commissioner (Additional Directed Oversight Functions (Security Service participation in criminality) Direction 2017

2. This Direction comes into force on 1^st September 2017.

Additional Review Functions

3. The Investigatory Powers Commissioner shall keep under review the application of the Security Service guidelines on the use of agents who participate in criminality and the authorisations issued in accordance with them.

      Signed:

      Date:    
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