British police can be forced to place British citizens under surveillance or hand over dna records under a new European agreement the UK has opted in to.

The European Investigation Order (eio) allows a court or prosecutor investigating a crime in one EU country to ask another EU country for information about a suspect.

Home Secretary Theresa May announced that Britain would opt in on July 27, saying, “The government have decided to opt into the eio because it offers practical help for the British police and prosecutors, and we are determined to do everything we can to help them cut crime and deliver justice.”

“It does not amount to a loss of sovereignty,” she said. “It will not unduly burden the police. It does not incur a loss of civil liberties. It is in the national interest to sign up to it.”

Critics of the eio disagree. “Police time could be wasted with dealing with unreasonable demands for evidence and the cost to our privacy could be enormous,” said Jago Russell, head of campaign group Fair Trials International. “The UK government has rightly said it will support new EU justice laws that make us safer and respect our civil liberties. The problem is, these proposals do neither.”

Britain has to comply with an eio request, unless granting the request would affect national security, break immunity or human rights rules or affect an ongoing investigation. May also said that she planned to ensure that police could reject requests involving trivial offenses.

Under the eio, out-of-country police could request information pertaining to an activity that isn’t a crime in Britain.

The eio will operate with the European Arrest Warrant (eaw), which makes it easy for European countries to extradite criminals from each other’s countries.

The eaw offers few ways for a country to stop its citizens from being extradited once a warrant has been issued. This has led to several alleged miscarriages of justice.

Before winning the election in Britain three months ago, the Conservative Party was a strong critic of handing over powers to Brussels. Yet now that it’s in government, it’s doing just that.

No wonder British citizens are becoming increasingly critical of Europe. They see their freedom being handed away, and they’re not even getting any say in the process. Britain’s political class may regard Europe as their lovers, but many of the people do not.

For more information on Britain’s eventual exit from Europe, see our article “In or Out?”