Part of Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill [Lords] – in a Public Bill Committee am 11:30 am ar 7 Mawrth 2024.
It is a pleasure to be here under your chairship, Mrs Cummins. The exceptional growth in volume and types of data across society globally since 2016 has affected the intelligence services’ ability to work and collaborate at the necessary operational pace. The existing bulk personal dataset safeguards do not account for the way that data and its availability have evolved since the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 was passed. This creates a negative impact on operational agility, while making it increasingly difficult for the intelligence services to develop the necessary capabilities.
Clauses 1 and 2 introduce an alternative regime for bulk personal datasets where there is low or no reasonable expectation of privacy—the so-called low/no regime. Clause 1 specifically provides a mechanism for the intelligence agencies to determine whether bulk personal datasets should be authorised under part 7 of the 2016 Act for sensitive datasets, or proposed new part 7A for low/no datasets.