Report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner - March 2015
Section 5
The Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act (DRIPA)
5.1
DRIPA14 received Royal Assent on 17th July 2014. My office published its full
response15 shortly thereafter. To meet the requirements expressed by Parliament during
the passing of the Bill, my office committed to, in my next report, in addition to reporting
on the general carrying out of my functions, report on whether DRIPA 2014, in practice,
does exactly what the Government said it would –
“......reassure people that the Bill does exactly what the Government are saying: it
merely replaces the powers already in existence ........ The commissioner currently
reports annually on these matters, and the Opposition proposal, as I understand
it, is that he would report on a six-monthly basis. He would, therefore, not just
be looking at the situation, but reporting on what was happening. Were he [the
Interception Commissioner] to find that there was an extension of powers that
would be made clear to the people......”
Home Secretary – Hansard – Column 708
5.2
The Shadow Home Secretary made similar reference “The six monthly review will reassure the House that the Bill is being implemented
in the way that Parliament intended”
Yvette Cooper MP – Hansard – Column 724
5.3
In this section of the report I will therefore try to answer the question as to whether
DRIPA is doing what was intended. To answer this question my office has focused its
consideration on the operational effect of sections 3, 4 and 5 of DRIPA 2014 and whether
there have been any changes in practice or consequences not anticipated. My office has
not been able to consider the operational effect of section 1 of DRIPA 2014 for reasons
which I will also outline. In addition I will discuss our new reporting requirements under
section 6 of DRIPA 2014.
Section 1 DRIPA. Requirements for CSPs to retain communications data
5.4
Our full response to DRIPA 2014 noted that there does not appear to be a
legal requirement for the Interception of Communications Commissioner or any
other independent oversight body to review either a) the implementation of section
1 DRIPA 2014. This gives the Secretary of State the power to give a retention notice
to a public telecommunications operator requiring it, the operator, to retain relevant
communications data; or, b) whether DRIPA 2014 makes provision for the imposition
of wider retention requirements than could be imposed under the Data Retention (EC
Directive) Regulations 2009 which section 1 of DRIPA 2014 sought to replace. While the
14 https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/data-retention-and-investigatory-powers-act-2014
15 http://www.iocco-uk.info/docs/IOCCO%20response%20to%20new%20reporting%20requirements.pdf
www.iocco-uk.info
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