Liberal Democrats and civil liberties campaigners have welcomed new measures requiring internet providers to keep data that identifies on-line users, but said it mustn’t be considered a means of restoring the “snooper’s charter”.

The Tory MP and civil liberties campaigner David Davis MP said the measure to link subscribers’ information to particular smartphones, notebooks or alternative devices through their web protocol (IP) addresses was a reasonable change, but that it shouldn’t serve as a “stepping stone back to the old snooper’s charter”.

The brand new law may also permit law enforcement to compel web companies to deliver data revealing who’s using smartphone or a computer at any specific time.

The Lib Dems also welcomed the move, saying Nick Clegg had repeatedly pressed the house secretary, Theresa May, to introduce propositions to match IP addresses with subscribers’ data since he blocked the introduction of the “snooper’s charter”.

“It’s great news the Home Office has eventually got round to creating suggestions on this after being repeatedly requested by Nick Clegg. This really is just the sort of matter that subscribers should take action on, instead of proposing an unworkable, unnecessary and disproportionate snooper’s charter. There’s totally no chance of such illiberal bill. It is dead and buried.”

The draft communications data bill would have required internet providers to save data monitoring users’ online activity for 12 months and allow it to be accessible to the security and police services.

The joint parliamentary committee that strongly criticized the “snooper’s charter” advocated linking subscribers’ data to IP addresses. The MPs and peers said the data would ensure it is possible to track who was using a specific IP address at a specified point of time.

Unique devices don’t have their particular IP addresses, but are assigned one each time they go online. Different devices may us the exact same addresses at different times. As such, the police battle to establish a specific person, as well as a connection between something that’s occurred online, including obtaining child abuse pictures.

Davis told The Andrew Marr Show on BBC1: “it is a stepping stone back to the old snooper’s charter, the matter that parliament roundly threw out about a year and half ago, two years ago, because they were not convinced that this was essential.

“Now this technical change is acceptable, it is practical, but the home secretary has said in effect that she views it as a route back into the full snooper’s charter and, honestly, the believe she is going to get real problem.”

May supported the new conditions would be contained in an anti- security and terrorism bill due to be released on Wednesday.

The laws will even contain David Cameron’s more contentious strategies to prohibit British citizens who are identified as terror suspects from the state for up to two years, give authorities broader powers to confiscate the passports of suspected jihad’s leaving the nation, and refuse landing rights in Britain to airlines that neglect to provide passenger lists ahead of time.

The bill also includes developments to the terrorism prevention and investigation measures which are accustomed to track terror suspects in Britain, for example, debut of a power to order a defendant to reside in a different section of the state. The threshold of evidence required to exercise such measures will likely be increased, as well as the bill will even confirm a more narrow definition of terrorism in a bid to make sure innocent individuals are not targeted by the brand new powers.

May said the bill was needed to counter the “increased risk” Britain faces.

Inquired on The Andrew Marr show whether the measure to link internet users as well as their devices to IP addresses was a step back to the snooper’s charter, she said: “This is a step but it does not go all the way to ensuring that we are able to identify all the individuals we will want to … The National Crime Agency … will still be unable to identify everybody who’s getting illegal content online.”