Charles Farr, director general of the Office of Security and Counter-Terrorism told PI that Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and web searches on Google - as well as webmail services such as Hotmail and Yahoo - are classified as "external communications", which means that they can be intercepted without the need for additional legal clearance.

The internal communications between citizens can only be intercepted when a targeted warrant is issued. Warrants must be signed by a minister and can only be issued when there is suspicion of illegal activity.

But when someone searches for something on Google or posts on Facebook they are sending information overseas - constituting an act of external communication which could be collected under a broader warrant which does not need to be signed by a minister, explained Mr Farr in a 48-page written statement.

This will cover anything then - Dropbox, Apple’s iCloud, Microsoft’s OneDrive, Amazon S3, etc. etc.. Anything you lob at these are clearly now open to interception and scrutiny.