Proposals for legislation were published last year

May 9, 2013 06:49 GMT  ·  By

On Wednesday, Queen Elizabeth II delivered her annual speech to reveal the UK government’s agenda for the upcoming period. One of the topics highlighted by Her Majesty is related to combating crimes that involve cyberspace.

“In relation to the problem of matching internet protocol addresses, my Government will bring forward proposals to enable the protection of the public and the investigation of crime in cyberspace,” she said.

In a report on the Queen’s comments, the government says that law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercept communications data when investigating serious crimes, but only the “who, when, where and how,” and not the actual content.

Authorities can identify a person who has made a phone call or sent a text message, but when it comes to Internet communications such as email, instant messaging and online telephony, the task becomes difficult.

That’s because the only way of identifying an individual on the Web is based on their Internet Protocol (IP) address. However, the problem is that more than one individual can use the same IP address.

“In order to know who has actually sent an email or made a Skype call, the police need to know who used a certain IP address at a given point in time. Without this, if a suspect used the internet to communicate instead of making a phone call, it may not be possible for the police to identify them,” the report reads.

“The Government is looking at ways of addressing this issue with CSPs. It may involve legislation.”

Proposals for such legislation were published last year.

The government highlights the fact that the proposal is not about accessing the communications of innocent members of the public, but a way to enhance the capabilities of law enforcement when investigating crimes that take place both online and offline.

Here is the Queen’s speech in full: