Independent Surveillance Review Panel Announced

RUSI announces Independent Surveillance Review Panel to advise and examine effectiveness and implications of surveillance practices in the UK.

The Royal United Services Institute is pleased to announce the composition of the panel that will be responsible for the Independent Surveillance Review announced by the Deputy Prime Minister, The Rt Hon Nick Clegg MP, on 4 March 2014.  This review will be conducted entirely by RUSI, under the chairmanship of its Director General, Professor Michael Clarke, and it is tasked to report after the next election.

The Terms of Reference the Deputy Prime Minister requested RUSI to address are to:

• advise on the legality, effectiveness and privacy implications of the UK surveillance programmes, particularly as revealed by the ‘Edward Snowden case’;
• examine potential reforms to current surveillance practices, including additional protections against the misuse of personal data, and alternatives to the collection and retention of bulk data; 
• make an assessment of how law enforcement and intelligence capabilities can be maintained in the face of technological change, while respecting principles of proportionality, necessity, and privacy.

The panel will be assisted with research undertaken by RUSI and by an extensive review of existing research.  Other individuals and organisations will be invited to submit relevant material to the panel for its consideration.  The panel of eminent individuals, all serving in a private capacity, has been carefully selected to represent the major interests surrounding surveillance issues; industry, governmental policy-making, security, scholarship, civil society concerns and parliamentary considerations.

The panel for the Independent Security Review is:

• Professor Heather Brooke
• Mrs Lesley Cowley, OBE *
• Sir Jonathan Evans, KCB
• Baroness Lane Fox of Soho, CBE
• Professor John Grieve, CBE QPM
• Professor Dame Wendy Hall, DBE FRS FREng
• Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield
• Professor Sir David Omand, GCB
• Baroness O’Neill of Bengrave
• The Rt. Hon. the Lord Rooker
• Sir John Scarlett KCMG OBE
• Professor Ian Walden 

Chairman: Professor Michael Clarke

Secretary to the Panel: Charlie Edwards, Director, National Security and Resilience Studies

For more information, see the RUSI website announcements.

*will join the panel mid-July