Compliance with Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000) (RIPA)
Meeting: 28/03/2013 - Audit and Governance Committee (Item 55)
55 Compliance with Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000) (RIPA) 
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To provide an update on how the Council has complied with RIPA legislation during 2012/13 and the number of RIPA applications which have been submitted and authorised; changes made to the existing RIPA Policy and Procedures to take account of the requirements of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012; and the forthcoming inspection by the Office of the Surveillance Commissioner.
Minutes:
The Committee considered a report on the Council’s compliance with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.
The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) provided a regulatory framework to enable public authorities to obtain information through the use of certain covert investigatory techniques. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 required public authorities to acquire judicial approval to use covert surveillance techniques. It also restricted the use of surveillance to the investigation of offences which attracted a custodial sentence of six months or more.
The Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Communications Data) Order 2010 set out which organisations could access communications data and for what purpose. The Council was limited to accessing only service users and subscriber data i.e. the ‘who’ ‘when’ and ‘where’ of a communication but not the actual content.
Since 1 April 2009 a total of 38 RIPA applications had been authorised and the Council had accessed communications data on 6 occasions. The surveillance was used in order to carry out its enforcement functions effectively e.g. benefit fraud, planning enforcement, licensing enforcement, trading standards, environmental health and community safety investigations.
Notification had been received from the Office of the Surveillance Commissioner, that the Council was to be inspected on 2 May 2013 and preparations were currently underway for this visit. A report would be submitted to the Committee outlining the Inspector’s findings and recommendations.
RESOLVED:
That the contents of the report in respect of the numbers of applications, actions taken to update the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act Policy and Procedures, the forthcoming visit by an Inspector from the Office of Surveillance Commissioner, and the current arrangements in place to ensure that the Council complies with the legislation be noted.