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A Democratic Licence to Operate
Advisory Council for Digital Technology and Engineering
Recommendation 6: A Technical Advisory Board was established under RIPA 2000 which
brought together industry experts in a personal capacity. Since its inception, the Board
has not met regularly and is seen as ineffectual. The government should replace the
Board with an Advisory Council for Digital Technology and Engineering. The Advisory
Council would be a statutory and non-departmental public body established under new
legislation. Terms of reference for a new Advisory Council should be drawn up so as to
keep under review the domestic and international situation with respect to the evolution
of the Internet, digital technology and infrastructure, as well as:
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Provide advice to relevant ministers, departments and agencies on
technical measures
Promote co-operation between the public and private sectors
Manage complaints from CSPs on notices and measures they consider unreasonable
Advance public education
Support research on technology and engineering.
Recommendation 7: The Advisory Council should be a resource for a new National
Intelligence and Surveillance Office (see Recommendation 17) and the ISC.
Bulk Collection of Data
Recommendation 8: The capability of the security and intelligence agencies to collect and
analyse intercepted material in bulk should be maintained with stronger safeguards as set
out in the Anderson Report. In particular, warrants for bulk interception should include
much more detail than is the case currently and be the subject of a judicial authorisation
process, save for when there is an urgent requirement (see Recommendation 10, point 2).
The Warrantry Regime
Recommendation 9: We agree with both the ISC and Anderson reports that there should
be different types of warrant for the interception and acquisition of communications
and related data, and have drawn on both sets of recommendations. We recommend
three types of warrant for the interception of communications and an authorisation for
communications data:
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For the interception of communications in the course of transmission we suggest
two different types of warrant:
a. A specific interception warrant which should be limited to a single person,
premises or operation
b. A bulk interception warrant which would allow content data and related
communications data to be obtained.