‘Urgent changes’ to Investigatory Powers Act receive Royal Assent

The Home Office says the “urgent, targeted changes” made to the Act will ensure laws keep pace with “rapidly changing technology and modern threats to national security”.

The Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Act, which received Royal Assent on Thursday (April 25), will also increase protection of the privacy of British citizens by strengthening the “world-leading safeguards” within the 2016 Act.

“As technology has rapidly advanced and the type of threats the UK faces evolved, it is crucial the UK stays ahead of our adversaries to keep the British people safe,” said the Home Office.

“The new Act makes focused amendments to the existing regime to ensure that it remains fit-for-purpose following an independent review of the law by Lord Anderson of Ipswich KBE KC.”

Updates include changes to the bulk personal dataset regime, to improve the intelligence agencies’ ability to respond with “greater agility and speed” to existing and emerging threats to national security.

They are designed to improve the quality and speed of analysts’ decision making, improving their ability to keep the public safe in a digital age, while adhering to strong, proportionate safeguards and with independent oversight.

Existing safeguards to support the Investigatory Powers Commissioner in carrying out oversight of public authorities’ use of investigatory powers will also be enhanced.

The notices regimes will be modified to ensure the efficacy of the existing powers in the context of new technologies and the commercial structures of a modern digital economy.

This includes ensuring that “exceptional lawful access” is maintained where necessary and proportionate for public safety, while also protecting the privacy of citizens and the ability of companies to develop cutting-edge technologies, the Home Office said.

In addition, the resilience of the warrantry authorisation processes will be increased to allow greater operational agility for the intelligence agencies and National Crime Agency (NCA).

This will help to ensure they can always get lawful access to information in a timely way so that they can respond to the most serious national security and organised crime threats.

The conditions for use of Internet Connection Records will also be updated to ensure that these can be used effectively to target the most serious types of criminal activity and national security threats without a corresponding increase in levels of intrusion, underpinned by a “robust independent oversight regime”.

The updated conditions will enable the NCA to track down child sex abusers more quickly, boosting our efforts to protect children at risk of harm and bring offenders to justice.

Security Minister Tom Tugendhat said: “As Security Minister, my first priority is to keep the British public safe.

“The world-leading Investigatory Powers regime is crucial to keeping the public safe. That’s why we’re making urgent, targeted changes to the Investigatory Powers Act to ensure our laws keep pace with rapidly changing technology and to guard against modern threats to national security.

“These changes mean that not only will our citizens be better protected from serious dangers such as terrorism and child sexual abuse online – their privacy will be better protected too.”

The Home Office said the reforms to the Act will ensure the powers continue to be subject to “robust independent oversight”.

“Access to individuals’ data will happen only, where it is proportionate, necessary to prevent the most serious forms of crime, and with robust protections in place,” it added.