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Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Act 2024

Contents

Overview of the Act

  1. The Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Act updates elements of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 (IPA 2016) to ensure the United Kingdom’s (UK) investigatory powers framework remains fit for purpose in the face of evolving threats.
  2. The introduction of this Act follows the publication of the Home Secretary’s statutory report on the IPA 2016 in February 2023 1 , and a subsequent independent review by the former Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, Lord Anderson of Ipswich KBE KC, published in June 2023 2 . These reports set out the case for change and Lord Anderson’s report broadly endorsed the proposed policy approaches.
  3. The key objective of the Act is to make targeted reforms to the IPA 2016 to ensure that it remains fit-for-purpose for intelligence services, law enforcement and other public authorities.
  4. The main elements of the Act are:
    1. Changes to the Bulk Personal Dataset (BPD) regime, which will improve the intelligence services’ ability to use less sensitive datasets (such as publicly and commercially available data).
    2. Placing the intelligence services’ examination of bulk personal datasets held by third parties (i.e. an external organisation outside of the intelligence services) on a statutory footing. If the examination was of datasets retained by intelligence services, existing provisions in the IPA 2016 would apply.
    3. Changes to the Notices regimes, which will help the UK anticipate and develop mitigations against the risk to public safety posed by multinational companies rolling out technology that precludes lawful access to data for the statutory purposes set out under the IPA 2016.
    4. Creating a new condition for the use of Internet Connection Records by the intelligence services and the National Crime Agency (NCA).
    5. Improvements to the oversight regime to support the Investigatory Powers Commissioner (IPC) to effectively carry out their role, including powers to enable the IPC to delegate some of their functions to Judicial Commissioners (JCs), appoint deputies and putting certain functions on a statutory basis.
    6. Measures to increase resilience of the warrantry authorisation processes for the intelligence services as well as for the NCA.
    7. Changes to the Communications Data regime to provide greater certainty on the circumstances for lawful data acquisition.

1 Home Office report on the operation of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 (accessible version) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

2 Independent review of the IPA 2016 (publishing.service.gov.uk)

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