Lack of protection under RIP Act

The watchdog for UK intelligence services, the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), has warned that a tribunal that was created to protect against abuses of powers introduced under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Act will be toothless.

In a Commons debate this week following the presentation of an ISC interim report to Prime Minister Tony Blair, Alan Beith MP told the House that the Investigatory Powers Tribunal was too under-funded and short-staffed to carry out its job and called the situation “ludicrous”, warning that the tribunal was needed to comply with the UK’s obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights, according to a report by news service ZDNet.co.uk.

The ISC report refers to a complaint by the Committee to the Prime Minister in December in which it expressed concern over the tribunal’s processing of complaints. The ISC states:

“…we noted that for a significant period in 2000 the Tribunal did not have sufficient secretariat to enable it even to open the mail, let alone process and investigate complaints.”

The report concludes with an acknowledgement that the Prime Minister has assured the ISC that further steps have been taken to address the problem and that the ISC “will need to examine progress on this.”

The RIP Act came into force in part in October 2000. It creates an offence of interception of communications and sets out the circumstances that authorise interception of e-mail or telephone calls by police and other intelligence services. It sets out circumstances in which owners of decryption keys can be obliged to disclose copies of decrypted data or the decryption keys.

Later this year, another controversial part of the Act will come into force that requires ISPs to assist in monitoring communications if ordered to do so in terms of the Act’s provisions. A separate Technical Advisory Board has been set up to help ISPs with any such orders. The Act does not require all ISPs to put interception equipment in place.
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