CHAPTER 12: CIVIL SOCIETY
Coherence and clarity
12.19. Investigatory powers and practices often involve secret, or covert, actions. The
importance of coherence and clarity, a desirable feature in any area of the law, is
heightened in this context.
12.20. Unfortunately, however, RIPA itself is complex, fragmented and opaque. It is
extraordinarily difficult both to understand and to apply. To summarise the concerns
in this regard:
(a)
As set out in Liberty’s submission, “a striking feature of RIPA is that it treats the
various forms of surveillance in a patchy and inconsistent manner”.19
(b)
Many of the concepts are outdated, including in particular the apparent
distinctions between external and other communications, and content and
communications data.
(c)
The terminology lacks clarity, in that:
Important concepts such as “content” are not defined.
Further terms, such as for example “communications” and “subscriber data”
now appear anachronistic and counter-intuitive.
(d)
Rules in the legislation and accompanying Codes of Practice are insufficiently
detailed.
Single and simple framework
12.21. RIPA itself contains inconsistencies which have been pointed out to me:
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(a)
Surveillance with a similar purpose but with slightly different methodologies
may fall under different regimes, such as for example;
a conversation recorded by a hidden microphone in a person’s home, a
hidden microphone in a person’s phone itself, and intercept of the
conversation;20 and
putting a “tail” on someone and determining the movements of a person and
with whom they have met via the use of geo-location data.21
(b)
Different safeguards and authorising mechanisms apply to each, leading to
possibly counterintuitive results. It was pointed out by those acting for a number
of women who had relationships with undercover police officers that the
intrusion in their daily lives only had (at the time) to be authorised by a middle-
The differences and complications inherent in the scheme as a whole are considered in detail in
JUSTICE, Freedom from Suspicion: Surveillance Reform for a Digital Age, (October 2011).
Authorised, respectively, under RIPA Part II, either the Police Act 1997 Part III or ISA 1994 s5, or RIPA
Part I Chapter 1.
Authorised, respectively, under RIPA Part I Chapter 2 and RIPA Part II.
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