The government is moving ahead with plans to regulate covert surveillance, saying it needs to update existing phonetapping powers to keep pace with the internet and mobile phones.

But the regulation of investigatory powers bill, which gets its second reading in parliament next week, has provoked widespread alarm. Internet experts and civil liberties campaigners fear that the legislation threatens human rights by opening the doors to unchecked powers for mass surveillance.

Britain already has wide powers to intercept communications, but until now it has lacked a regulatory framework for use of informers, a situation the bill is designed to rectify. The proposals cover the monitoring and interception of communications by law enforcement and security agencies. The bill lays down the rules to be followed by the police and security services when they tap private phones, pagers, mobiles or private networks, including office switchboards.

The bill will cover activities well beyond those of the security and intelligence services and the police. Ministers will be able to issue orders allowing surveillance by other agencies such as the department of health and social security, the ministry of agriculture and the department of trade and industry, as well as local authorities.

The government argues that it needs this power to combat criminal groups such as paedophile gangs that send encrypted messages over the internet. Civil liberties groups welcome the introduction of a systematic legal framework for surveillance activities while expressing deep unease at the government's wide sweep of powers and the lack of oversight and redress procedures.

The authorities will be able to force anybody to hand over the text of or decryption keys for computer communications such as emails. Those who refuse could face jail.

A key issue is the burden of proof. Critics of the legislation say innocent computer users who had lost software codes could end up in jail as it would be impossible for them to prove that they did not have the requested key.

The government believes it has built sufficient safeguards into the legislation. But Caspar Bowden of the Foundation for Information Policy Research think tank, says the law as drafted is "impossible". He accuses the government of ignoring all the advice and lobbying it has received from the internet community in the past year.

"This law could make a criminal out of anyone who uses encryption to protect their privacy on the internet," Mr Bowden said. He claimed that the department of trade and industry dropped decryption powers from its e-communications bill last year because the measure was incompatible with the human rights act. "The corpse of a law laid to rest by trade secretary Stephen Byers has been stitched up and jolted back into life by home secretary Jack Straw," he said.

Mr Straw says none of the law enforcement activities specified in the bill is new. Covert surveillance is old as policing itself, he points out. "What is new is that for the first time the use of these techniques will be properly regulated by law, and externally supervised, not least to ensure that law enforcement operations are consistent with the duties imposed on public authorities by the European convention on human rights."

Useful links

The regulation of investigatory powers bill
The Foundation for Information Policy Research's discussion of the bill
Caspar Bowden profile
Ministers seek wide bugging powers
News Unlimited special report: free speech on the net

• FIPR is organising Scrambling for Safety (see last September's programme here), a free public conference to discuss the bill, on Wednesday 22 March in London. The government and opposition parties have agreed to participate. Registration details and further information are on the FIPR site or e-mail i.want.sfs2000@fipr.org.