King's Speech 2023 - Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill

Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill

“At a time when threats to national security are changing rapidly due to new technology, my Ministers will give the security and intelligence services the powers they need and will strengthen independent judicial oversight.”

• The number one priority of any Government is to keep its citizens safe – especially at a time of heightened threats at home and abroad. The Investigatory Powers Act provides a clear legal framework for the security and intelligence agencies, and law enforcement bodies to access the information they need to keep us safe, prevent terrorism and take on hostile states.

• These powers, supported by robust and world-leading judicial safeguards, play an integral part in helping to keep the public safe from a range of threats including terrorism, state threats and serious and organised crime such as child sexual abuse and exploitation.

• But since 2016 the nature of the threats we face has evolved and we need to ensure the UK’s investigatory powers framework remains fit-for-purpose and that we keep the powers available to our security and law enforcement agencies up to date with new technology, within the UK’s clear legal framework.

• Without making changes now, the ability of our agencies to tackle evolving threats – including terrorism, state threats, and serious crime – will be increasingly constrained. In the face of greater global instability and technological advancements, now is not the time for inaction. This Bill will make urgent and targeted amendments to the Investigatory Powers Act to ensure that our intelligence agencies have the right tools at their disposal to keep the country safe.

What does the Bill do?

• The Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill will update the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 to deliver the urgent changes needed to protect the British people, enabling the intelligence agencies to keep up-to-date in tackling a range of evolving threats and accelerating technological advancements that provide new opportunities for terrorists, hostile state actors, child abusers and criminal gangs.

• These limited and targeted reforms to the 2016 Act do not create new powers but, instead, recalibrate certain elements of the current regime to ensure that it remains fit-for-purpose to respond to modern threats.

TheBill will:

• Make changes to the bulk personal dataset regime to ensure the UK’s intelligence agencies can more effectively make use of less sensitive data, which is already widely available to the public, subject to appropriate safeguards.
• Expand the oversight regime to support the Investigatory Powers Commissioner to effectively carry out their role, including putting a number of their functions on a statutory basis. This will maintain the robust, transparent, and world-leading safeguards in the regime.
• Reform the notices regime, to help the UK anticipate the risk to public safety posed by the rolling out of technology by multinational companies that precludes lawful access to data. This will reduce the risk of the most serious offences such as child sexual exploitation and abuse or terrorism.
• Update the conditions for use of Internet Connections Records to ensure that these can be used effectively to detect the most serious types of criminal activity and national security threats, underpinned by a robust independent oversight regime.
• Increase the resilience of the warrantry authorisation processes to ensure the security and intelligence agencies, as well as the National Crime Agency, 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.

Territorial extent and application

• The Bill will extend and apply to the whole of the United Kingdom.

Key facts

• The measures being taken forward in the Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill have been driven by the Home Secretary’s review of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 and recommendations made in the complementary independent review by the former Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, Lord Anderson of Ipswich KBE KC.

• The UK has less ability to retain and examine bulk personal datasets than our closest allies. Whilst this reflects the UK’s longstanding commitment to privacy and our strong international reputation for protecting human rights, the British public rightly also expect our intelligence agencies to be able to access data in a closely controlled way in order to investigate the most serious crimes like child abuse and terrorism.

• The UK’s existing regime for using publicly available data is much more restrictive than our closest allies. Currently a warrant approved by both the Secretary of State and a Judicial Commissioner is required to enable the 

  retention and examination of information that is already publicly available. The changes in the Bill will maintain high oversight standards while bringing us in line with international partners.

  • The powers of the world-leading Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office will be extended. The Office oversees the use of covert investigatory powers by more than 600 public authorities, including the UK’s intelligence agencies, law enforcement agencies, police, and prisons. In 2021, the Commissioners’ Office conducted 450 inspections and issued 303,831 warrants and authorisations across all investigatory powers. The majority of these were used for the purposes of preventing or detecting crime.
  • Currently the law requires certain thresholds to be met to enable to use of internet connection records, for example when an illicit website has been accessed and by whom. This limits the ability of operational partners to use connection records to identify and locate offenders and prevents them from detecting previously ‘unknown’ criminals online.
  • The requirements in the current Bulk Personal Dataset regime impacts on the intelligence agencies’ ability to spot and exploit opportunities in publicly and commercially available data which impacts on their agility and speed in responding to existing and emerging threats to national security.
  • The changes to the Notices regime are needed to help the UK anticipate the risk to public safety posed by multinational companies rolling out technology that precludes lawful access to data – reducing the risk of the most serious offences such as child sexual exploitation and abuse or terrorism.
  • Graeme Biggar, Director General of the National Crime Agency has said: “The amendments to the Investigatory Powers Act will enhance law enforcement’s ability to tackle terrorism, state threats and serious organised crime such as child sexual exploitation, illegal immigration and fraud.”
  • The Heads of the Security and Intelligence Agencies (MI5, SIS, and GCHQ) have been clear that reforming the Investigatory Powers Act now is key to ensuring they can respond to new and evolving threats: “The scale and rapidity of technological advances since the IPA was passed in 2016 mean some aspects of the legislation urgently need updating to enable the Intelligence Agencies to continue to have maximum impact on increasingly complex and diverse threats. From intensifying hostile activity by states, to terrorists and criminal groups, all our adversaries are taking advantage of new technologies to further their aims. It is vital the UK is able to keep pace.”
  • Lord Anderson of Ipswich KBE KC has said: “I do not always welcome Home Office Bills: but I hope this one will come sooner rather than later”.