Talk:Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000

The Nature of the RIP Act

This article is rather cryptic on the nature of the burden placed on ISPs, and it's civil liberties implications. As I understand it the ISPs are required to maintain a database of all internet access by all their clients: so every web page requested, email sent, etc, has it's header information (but not the full content) recorded by the ISP, to be made available to various agencies on request (originally only with a warrant I believe, but that may have been weakened; they certainly wanted to open it up to a much wider group of agencies). The data thus collected was to be maintained for seven years, if I remember correctly. Effectively this would be a form of pre-emptive surveillance, where they do the surveillance first, and only decide later if they need to use it.

There were a number of other provisions in the original bill. For example, it would be an imprisonable offence for a ISP employee to fail to comply with a request (properly made) to disclose this information. It would also be an imprisonable offence to inform the person under surveillance that this information had been disclosed, without limitation on time, and even if no charges or other action was ever taken against the client in question.

Another concern, at the time, was that the bill was loosely worded in such a way that it was not clear what scope of services where included (for example, mobile phone text messages, telephone calls).

Technically most of these agencies would have had pre-existing powers to obtain this information if available. (e.g. Trade Descriptions Act). RIPA imposes a number of conditions on the use of such powers . (Hence Regulation of). This can cause problems dealing with rogue traders in that reverse directory information (freely available in many countries) is subject to the same restrictions as requests for the content of communications. This results in delays during which more consumers can be ripped off. Esthameian 06:50, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Name

Any reason for this not being at Regulation of Investigatory Powers? Were there two? Martin [22:24, 20 May 2003 (UTC)]

Not that I'm aware of; any objections to moving it? — Matt 07:11, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Yes. All Acts are named thusly (that is, with their name as currently referenced in Law, in legal cases, and in Parliamentry work such as AoPs and SIs: "Foo Bar Act 1234"), with a very few exceptions. Keep here, but I'll add a redirect from several places.

James F. (talk) 12:34, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Burden of proof

"The accused must prove that they do not have the key, claiming to have mislaid or forgotten it might not be accepted as a defence." What if the accused claims never to have possessed the key? The article is not clear on this point; the text of the Act seems to imply that a prosecutor needs to prove that the accused possessed the key at some time, but it isn't entirely clear and various popular accounts suggest the opposite.

AIUI, which is mainly a result of having talked about the Act with people who have read it and understand it far better than I ever will, the burden of proof would, rather inexplicably, rest on the defence, not the prosecution, in showing that the defendent had at no time had the said key. Lovely, isn't it? Maybe someone more knowledgable could comment, and correct/update?

James F. (talk) 01:11, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This seems to be the case, but I don't know much about this. This site analyses a variety of scenarios, and number 14 touches on this, suggesting that Bob sending Alice a message using her public key is sufficient grounds to believe that Alice once owned a corresponding private key, "Alice had had the key"...— Matt 04:46, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Number 14 relates to the reverse onus regarding continued possession, in a case where past possession is presumably an undisputed fact; "That Alice had had the key ... which indeed she had" is specifically listed as one of the things that the prosecution has to show. This example does not directly address the question of the onus of proof regarding whether the defendant ever possessed the key; I don't even see how one can read into it any inference from circumstantial evidence, as you are apparently doing.

Misunderstanding of effects

The title is the Regulation, not the Provision. of investigatory powers. Headlines about the application of the Act to local Councils included claims of 'Dustbin men reading your e-amils' whereas the application was to limit powers already contained in e.g. Trade Marks Act

Section III

Did section 3 not come into effect last October? Or am I confusing it with something else?Prlewis0 (talk) 20:10, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Poole Borough Council

The family involved within the Poole Borough Council incident, claimed that the purpose of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 was to track both criminals and terrorists.

The use of the word 'terrorist' in this context is inflammatory. Indeed the long title of the Act contains no reference to terrorists or terrorism. The Act was however designed to regulate the carrying out of surveillance, an aim to which it appeared to achieve in this case. As after extensive surveillance, the family were exonerated from any 'criminal' wrongdoing and their daughter was awarded a place at the school of her choice.

Whist it can be argued that the resort to RIPA was disproportionate, inflammatory language such as "there have already been accusations of overkill following a case where the act was used by council bureaucrats to put three young children and their parents under surveillance to check whether they lived in a particular school catchment area" should be avoided.

Leebobs (talk) 22:28, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

The Council did not 'resort' to RIPA - RIPA does not provide powers of surveillance. In fact, they may not have needed to obtain RIPA authorisation at all if all they observed was public activity. The National Police Improvement Agency publication 'The Covert Journal' (despite its title available for download from the agency) has stated that "The use of surveillance and other covert techniques does not require authorisation under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 ...". The courts in the Naomi Cambell versus paparazzi case have said that there can be no reasonable expectation of privacy for public activities.

Also note that if any of the three families in the Poole case (NB those caught out have not complained!)had been taken to court they could have been charged with uttering a false document (2 years inside) or fraud (up to 7 years imprisonment).—Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.27.171.11 (talk • contribs) 21:37, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

According to the BBC,[1] the council did resort to using powers from the RIPA in this case. Do you have a source to support your position that they did not use such powers or that such powers do not even exist? Road Wizard (talk) 21:54, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

try the Covert Journal as above. The BBC is merely repeating news agencies reports which are incorrect. Also try reading the Act. most of the news reports are generated by a particular Euro MP.

Also see the LACORS parliamentary briefing at [2] which specifically states that the Act does not provide powers.

The real problem is media generated bigotry against Local Government - the officers using this legislation are those with investigatory powers and these are generally highly educated and professional. One of the main users is Trading Standards and the basic qualification includes a degree - our local TS department has 12 officers, 5 fully qualified, two trainees and staff have 9 other degrees between them including 2 with law degrees. A long step from the media's apocryphal unqualifed school leavers!