CHAPTER 6: POWERS AND SAFEGUARDS
requirements to provide assistance in relation to interception warrants are complied
with.
6.98.
For communications data, RIPA ss22(5A)-(5B) state that an authorisation or a
requirement in accordance with a notice may relate to conduct outside the UK and
may be given to a person outside the UK. Under s22(6), it shall be the duty of the
service provider “whether or not the operator is in the United Kingdom” to comply with
the requirements of any notice given to him under s4, so long as “reasonably
practicable” (s22(7)), although unlike interception there is no requirement to consider
the restrictions of the law of the territory in which that person operates. The duty can
be imposed, including on those outside the UK, by civil proceedings for an injunction
or for specific performance of a statutory duty (s22(8)). In practical terms, the UK
Government has asserted its right to order overseas service providers to provide
communications data when a notice is served on them.
6.99.
Whether or not the UK Government could enforce these obligations in relation to
service providers has not yet been tested and there remain some overseas service
providers who do not consider they are bound by RIPA. As a matter of practice, such
cooperation as is forthcoming from overseas CSPs comes from informal requests for
assistance.
Oversight
The IOCC
6.100. The office of IOCC is constituted under RIPA to keep under review the exercise and
performance by the Secretary of State and other public authorities of their functions
under RIPA Part I.107 The IOCC must hold, or have held, high judicial office. The
current Commissioner is Sir Anthony May, a former judge of the Court of Appeal. He
reports to the Prime Minister, who lays that report before Parliament, every six
months.108
6.101. The IOCC holds the public authorities that exercise RIPA powers to account, and
seeks to improve compliance (and public confidence) by means of scrutiny. He selects
and reviews a sample of warrants, and assesses their necessity and proportionality.109
He also reviews errors that have been identified by public authorities, identifies further
errors and assesses any mitigating steps that have been put in place. He cannot
disclose the details of any individual warrant or communications data acquisition but a
part of his role is to examine how RIPA powers are being used, whether they are being
abused and if so to draw the fact to public attention in his six-monthly reports to the
Prime Minister (which are laid before Parliament).
107
108
109
RIPA s57. Other commissioners include the ISCommr, who has an equivalent role, and the Surveillance
Commissioner: see 6.22 above.
RIPA s58(4).
For a discussion of the IOCC’s query based sampling method see IOCC Report, (March 2015), paras
6.54-6.59.
119