Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill: call for evidence

Aims of the Bill

The Government has described the key objective of the Bill as to make targeted reforms to the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 (IPA 2016) to ensure that it remains fit-for-purpose for intelligence services, law enforcement and other public authorities. It would implement most of the proposals from Lord Anderson’s Independent Review of the IPA 2016 and the Home Office consultation on changes to the notices regime contained in Parts 4 and 9 of the IPA.

The main elements of the Bill are:

• Changes to the Bulk Personal Dataset (BPD) regime, which will improve the intelligence services’ ability to use less sensitive datasets (such as publicly and commercially available data).
• Placing the intelligence services’ examination of bulk personal datasets held by third parties (i.e. an external organisation outside of the intelligence services) on a statutory footing.
• Changes to the Notices regimes, which will help the UK anticipate and develop mitigations against the risk to public safety posed by multinational companies rolling out technology that precludes lawful access to data for the statutory purposes set out under the IPA 2016.
• Creating a new condition for the use of Internet Connection Records by the intelligence services and the National Crime Agency (NCA).
• Improvements to the oversight regime to support the Investigatory Powers Commissioner (IPC) to effectively carry out their role, including powers to enable the IPC to delegate some of their functions to Judicial Commissioners (JCs), appoint deputies and putting certain functions on a statutory basis.
• Measures to increase resilience of the warrantry authorisation processes for the intelligence services as well as for the NCA.
• Changes to the Communications Data regime to provide greater certainty on the circumstances for lawful data acquisition.

It would extend to the whole of the UK.

Follow the progress of the Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill [HL]

The Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill [HL] was introduced in the House of Lords on 8 November 2023 and completed its stages there on 30 January 2024. The Bill was introduced to the House of Commons on 31 January. The Bill’s second reading was held on 19 February.

• Bills before Parliament: Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill [HL]
• Read Explanatory Notes: Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill [HL]
• House of Commons Library Briefing Paper

There will be no oral evidence sessions.

Guidance on submitting written evidence

Deadline for written evidence submissions

The Public Bill Committee is now able to receive written evidence. The sooner you send in your submission, the more time the Committee will have to take it into consideration and possibly reflect it in an amendment. The order in which amendments are taken in Committee will be available in due course under Selection of Amendments on the Bill documents pages. Once the Committee has dealt with an amendment it will not revisit it.

The first sitting of the Public Bill Committee is expected to be on Thursday 7 March and the Committee is scheduled to report by Tuesday 12 March. However, please note that when the Committee concludes its consideration of the Bill it is no longer able to receive written evidence and it can conclude earlier than the expected deadline of 5.00pm on Tuesday 12 March. You are strongly advised to submit your written evidence as soon as possible.

Your submission should be emailed to scrutiny@parliament.uk

Further guidance on submitting written evidence can be found here (pdf, 1MB).

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