Big Brother Watch has issued a report detailing major shortcomings in adoption and implementation of the Coronavirus Act 2020 and Health Protection Regulations 2020 in the United Kingdom. The report draws attention to the lack of clarity and guidance on the legal norms granting exceedingly wide powers to ministers and law-enforcement authorities.  

The main findings after review of the first month of emergency powers in the United Kingdom include:  

• a new case of a teen wrongly convicted under Coronavirus Act and under powers for the wrong country 

• a “postcode lottery of pandemic law” as forces deliver “inconsistent, heavy-handed and sometimes incompetent” policing 

• suspension of freedom of information relating to coronavirus policing 

• new curbs on free speech online 

• growing use of drones, ANPR, location tracking and “a surveillance state in the UK of a scale never seen before”. 

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