Donald Trump will use US surveillance powers for personal gain, fear Brits

Poll indicates high level of distrust in incoming US president

Eighty per cent of Brits fear that Donald Trump, who will be inaugurated as the 45th US president today, will use US state surveillance powers for personal gain, according to a survey by Privacy International.

The survey also indicated that half claimed that they have "no trust" in Trump only using the US government's surveillance and information-gathering powers for "legitimate purposes".

Trump will be sworn in just days after outgoing President Barack Obama expanded US surveillance powers (and not for the first time), and just weeks after the UK's own Investigatory Powers Act - aka the Snoopers' Charter - became law.

The IP Act expands the government's powers to conduct online surveillance, and to collect and analyse people's personal data. And, under intelligence-gathering agreements with the US, this information could also find its way into the hands of the US National Security Agency, the US equivalent of GCHQ.

As a result, three-quarters of respondents want the UK government to be more proactive in terms of making sure that Trump's administration cannot misuse their personal data.

The UK's intelligence sharing arrangements with the US are based upon the UK-USA Agreement, which was drafted shortly after World War II. It allows UK and US agencies to share, by default, any raw intelligence, collection equipment, decryption techniques, and translated documents.

Current arrangements also allow US intelligence agencies to collect intelligence and operate from within the UK.

"Today, a new president will take charge of US intelligence agencies - a president whose appetite for surveillance powers and how they're used puts him at odds with British values, security, and its people," claimed Privacy International research officer Edin Omanovic.

He continued: "Four out of five British people think he will use these powers for personal gain. Given that our intelligence agencies are giving him unfettered access to massive troves of personal data, including potentially about British people, it is essential that the details behind all this are taken out of the shadows.

"Secret powers overseen by secret mechanisms are not good enough: it is vital that we know more about what data Trump will get and how this is overseen."

Omanovic suggested that while people have started to understand the level of cooperation and information sharing between spooks on both sides of the Atlantic, the lack of sufficient oversight remains "dangerous".

The Privacy International Survey was conducted by YouGov.