Up to 14 years in prison for cable sabotage: UK moves to protect subsea cables
Around 99 percent of Britain’s international data runs through undersea cables. The government wants to significantly tighten protection laws, some of which are 140 years old.
Symbolic image · Photo: ITookSomePhotos / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
Anyone who deliberately damages undersea cables or pipelines in Britain could in future face up to 14 years in prison and unlimited fines. That is the proposal in a government white paper launching a twelve-week public consultation. Some of the existing rules are 140 years old. According to the government, around 99 percent of the country’s international data runs through fibre-optic cables on the seabed, and 74 percent of its gas through pipelines.
In addition to new criminal offences, operators of subsea cables are to be subject to security and resilience obligations. The responsible minister is also to be empowered to issue directions to cable and repair companies on national security grounds. A separate regime is planned for sensing technology that uses fibre-optic cables, for example for surveillance. “Undersea cables carry the energy and data that our country relies on every day,” said Security Minister Dan Jarvis.
Most cable damage is caused by accidents involving anchors or trawl nets, environmental factors or technical faults, according to the government. But suspicious activity around the infrastructure is increasing, the UK Defence Journal reported. In April, the British armed forces made public a covert Russian submarine operation near undersea infrastructure.