Tech firms are seeking to offer ways for online users in the UK to hide their browser history. This is after a law allowing the government to keep a record of peoples' online activities was passed by the House of Lords.

Internet services providers will be required to keep a detailed record of the services that their customer devices connect to, including websites and messaging apps.

Like Us on Facebook

The UK Home Office says that the move is meant to help in combating terrorism, but critics have christened it the "snoopers' charter."

"It only takes one bad actor to go in there and get the entire database," said James Blessing, Chairman of the Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA), which represents high hitters such as BT and Sky Media.

Blessing added that it would be virtually impossible to protect the database, as there will be always be people smart enough to hack into it.

"Mistakes will happen. It's just a question of when. Hopefully, it will be in tens or hundreds of years. But it could be in weeks," Blessing added.

The Investigatory Powers Bill received approval from the House of Lords on Nov. 19. It is due to become law before the end of this year.

For this reason, virtual private network (VPN) operators have seized on the fear it has induced to market their services.

VPNs scramble the user's internet traffic and send it to one of their own servers, then passing it on to a site in a form that can be made sense of. A similar process goes on in reverse, helping a user's activities to remain masked.

VPN operators said they have seen a sizable increase on inquiries from the UK.

TagsUK, cybersecurity, cybercrime