The UK Investigatory Powers Act: A Model for Europe

By Sir David Omand GCB

Sir David Omand GCB is a Visiting Professor in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London and at PSIA Sciences Po in Paris where he teaches a course he has designed on digital intelligence. His posts in government service included UK Security and Intelligence Coordinator in the Cabinet Office after 9/11, Permanent Secretary of the Home Office, Director of GCHQ, Deputy Under-Secretary of State for Policy in the MOD and Principal Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Defence. He is the Senior Independent Director of Babcock International Group plc and a senior adviser to Paladin Capital Group, investing in the cybersecurity sector. He is an honorary Fellow of Corpus Christi College Cambridge and holds an honorary doctorate from Birmingham University.

On November 29, Royal Assent was given to the UK Investigatory Powers Act, after eight months of intensive Parliamentary scrutiny, with hundreds of amendments made, following lengthy pre-legislative debate in three Parliamentary Committees.  The Act draws on the input from three separate, independent inquiries that were set up after a failed earlier attempt to legislate.  In all, it is one of the most examined pieces of legislation in the modern age. Why was this law regarded as so essential by the government and its secret intelligence and law enforcement chiefs?

What the new law actually does—in over 300 pages—is, for the first time, place all the digital intelligence gathering activities of the authorities fully under the rule of law, replacing the previous hodge-podge of separate legislative provisions under which the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ)—the UK’s digital intelligence and cyber security agency—and the other intelligence and law enforcement bodies were able to access and acquire communications and other digital information on suspects.

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