Ship owners and operators that deliberately damage undersea internet cables around Britain face jail under new laws designed to crack down on Russia’s “grey zone” activity, The i Paper can reveal.
Existing UK legislation for deliberately interfering with communications cables carries fines of just £1,000, unless it can be proven that it was sabotage on behalf of a foreign power – which is harder to establish.
Ministers warn that these laws are decades out of date and that we live in a “very different world” where critical national infrastructure is coming under daily attack from hostile states, leaving the country vulnerable to a nationwide shutdown of the internet, financial system and mobile phone networks.
Shorts
The new legislation is designed to act as a major deterrent, with higher fines that could run into the hundreds of thousands of pounds and prison sentences for those who damage subsea infrastructure critical to UK internet access.
