2013 Annual Report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner
ask what has changed since 2000 to call in question the contemporary integrity of the
legislation.
6.5.6 The section 8(4) process in particular was not invented in RIPA 2000. It goes back
to the Interception of Communications Act 1985, which already contained in its section
3(2) to (4) and section 6 the essential features of the present section 8(4) structure. The
statutory structure has now been in place in its present form for upwards of 13 years.
6.5.7 RIPA 2000 received Royal Assent on 28th July 2000. It is of some relevance to
note that this was before the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in the United States on
11th September 2001. RIPA 2000 was not therefore – as I understand some US legislation
was – in reaction to those events.
6.5.8 RIPA 2000 was enacted in part to bring the Interception of Communications Act
1985 up to date so that it should comply with the Human Rights Act 1998.
6.5.9
Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights provides that –
•
•
“Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and
his correspondence.
“There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of
the right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a
democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the
economic wellbeing of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime,
for the protection of health and morals or for the protection of the rights and
freedom of others”.
6.5.10 I have described the structure of RIPA 2000 Part I for both interception of content
and acquiring communications data in Sections 3 and 4 respectively of this report. It
will be seen that these structures explicitly embrace the requirements of necessity and
proportionality and the exceptionally permitted statutory purposes, all of which derive
from Article 8. Thus if conduct under an interception warrant or authority to obtain
communications data would disproportionately intrude upon a person’s privacy, it would
be unlawful to grant the warrant or give the authority. A specific judgment has to be
made in this respect by the Secretary of State or the DP for each application.
6.5.11 In short, RIPA 2000 Part I was amending legislation explicitly enacted to protect
privacy rights under Article 8 of the European Convention.
Communications data.
6.5.12 The structure of the statutory system for lawfully obtaining communications data
under RIPA 2000 Part I Chapter II and the associated Code of Practice is given in Section
4 of this report. It is important that every requirement for communications data has
been individually authorised by a process which requires a detailed written application,
scrutiny by a SPoC and consideration by an independent DP.
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