Could the European GDPR undermine the UK Investigatory Powers Act?

The Investigatory Powers Act, also widely known as the Snooper’s Charter, received Royal Assent on 29 November, 2016, and thus is now law. However, 2016 also saw the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) being approved by the EU Parliament in April. Pascal Crowe, postgraduate student at the LSE, attended a recent conference organised by Alison Harcourt of the University of Exeter on the future of data protection and privacy policy between the EU and the UK. Here, he explains in which ways the Investigatory Powers Act and the GDPR are in conflict with each other.