The Investigatory Powers Act 2016 (c. 25) (nicknamed the Snoopers' Charter) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which received royal assent on 29 November 2016.'Extreme surveillance' becomes UK law with barely a whimper Published by The Guardian, 19 November 2016, accessed on the same day Its different parts came into force on various dates from 30 December 2016.Investigatory Powers Act goes into force, putting UK citizens under intense new spying regime Published by The Independent, 31 December 2016 The act comprehensively sets out and in limited respects expands the electronic surveillance powers of the British intelligence agencies and police. It also claims to improve the safeguards on the exercise of those powers.

The act was amended by the Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Act 2024, following a review by Lord Anderson of Ipswich, the person who originally proposed the Act.

Drafting and scrutiny In 2014 the British government asked David Anderson, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, to review the operation and regulation of investigatory powers available to law enforcement and intelligence agencies, in particular the interception of communications and communications data, and to recommend change. This report was published in June 2015 and recommended a new law to clarify these powers.

The Draft Investigatory Powers Bill was published in November 2015, with a large number of accompanying documents, and a Joint Committee of the House of Commons and House of Lords was established to scrutinise the draft bill. Some parts of the bill referring to bulk personal datasets came into effect in November 2015, before parliamentary scrutiny began. The Joint Committee published its pre-legislative scrutiny report in March 2016. The Government accepted the vast majority of its 198 recommendations, together with the recommendations of two other parliamentary committees that had scrutinised the draft Bill, and the revised bill was introduced in the House of Commons, where it was subject to debate by Members of Parliament.

In March 2016 the House of Commons passed the Investigatory Powers Bill on its second reading by 281 votes to 15, moving the bill to the committee stage.Ryan Gallagher, U.K. Parliament Debates 'Snoopers' Charter, The Intercept (March 15, 2016). The Labour Party and Scottish National Party abstained from the vote, while the Liberal Democrats voted against it.Kelly Fiveash, MPs vote in favour of Investigatory Powers Bill after Labour, SNP abstain [Updated], Ars Technica (15 March 2016).Rowena Mason, Anushka Asthana & Alan Travis, 'Snooper's charter': Theresa May faces calls to improve bill to protect privacy, The Guardian (15 March 2016).

At the committee stage, constitutional matters, technology, and human rights issues were examined. The Labour Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, Harriet Harman, said:

At this stage, at the insistence of the Labour Party, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation was commissioned to conduct a further review of the operational case for the bulk powers reserved under the Bill to the British intelligence agencies: bulk interception, bulk collection of metadata, bulk equipment interference and the retention and use of bulk datasets. That review was conducted with the help of a small, security-cleared expert team, and published together with 60 case studies in August 2016. Like the 2014-15 reports of the PCLOBPrivacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, (s215); (s702) and National Academy of Sciences in the US, it is a significant information source for the utility of so-called mass surveillance techniques

On 16 November 2016 the House of Lords approved the final version of the Investigatory Powers Bill, leaving only the formality of Royal Assent to be completed before the Bill became law.

On 21 December 2016, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) declared that the generalised retention of certain types of personal data is unlawful, although little is known as to how this will affect the Investigatory Powers Act at this stage. As of 29 January 2017, many sources have since reported on the Investigatory Powers Act as if it is currently in action. Draft codes of practice laid out by the Home Office in February 2017 did not provide insight on the Government's communications data code of practise, as it was for the Court of Appeal to decide how to apply the December ruling of the ECJ on data retention in member states. It was then reported in late February 2017 that the aspects of the Bill forcing communications service providers to retain data had been "mothballed" due to the ECJ ruling on the "general and indiscriminate" retention of communications data being illegal.

Provisions of the Act The Act:; ; introduced new powers, and restated existing ones, for British intelligence agencies and law enforcement to carry out targeted interception of communications, bulk collection of communications data, and bulk interception of communications;; ; created an Investigatory Powers Commission (IPC) to oversee the use of all investigatory powers, alongside the oversight provided by the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament and the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. The IPC consists of a number of serving or former senior judges. It combined and replaced the powers of the Interception of Communications Commissioner, Intelligence Services Commissioner, and Chief Surveillance Commissioner; established a requirement for a judge serving on the IPC to review warrants for accessing the content of communications and equipment interference authorised by a Secretary of State before they come into force; required communication service providers (CSPs) to retain British internet users' "Internet connection records" – which websites were visited but not the particular pages and not the full browsing history – for one year; allowed police, intelligence officers and other government department managers (listed below) to see the Internet connection records, as part of a targeted and filtered investigation, without a warrant; permitted the police and intelligence agencies to carry out targeted equipment interference, that is, hacking into computers or devices to access their data, and bulk equipment interference for national security matters related to foreign investigations; placed a legal obligation on CSPs to assist with targeted interception of data, and communications and equipment interference in relation to an investigation; foreign companies are not required to engage in bulk collection of data or communications; maintained an existing requirement on CSPs in the UK to have the ability to remove encryption applied by the CSP; foreign companies are not required to remove encryption; put the Wilson Doctrine on a statutory footing for the first time as well as safeguards for other sensitive professions such as journalists, lawyers and doctors; provided local government with some investigatory powers, for example to investigate someone fraudulently claiming benefits, but not access to Internet connection records; created a new criminal offence for unlawfully accessing internet data; created a new criminal offence for a CSP or someone who works for a CSP to reveal that data has been requested.

Investigatory Powers Commissioner The Act created the role of Investigatory Powers Commissioner to provide independent oversight of the use of investigatory powers by intelligence agencies, police forces and other public authorities. In March 2017 Lord Justice Sir Adrian Fulford, a Court of Appeal judge, was appointed as first Commissioner for a three-year term. His office (IPCO) will have fifteen senior judges as judicial commissioners, a technical advisory panel of scientific experts, and around 50 staff. The Act gives the prime minister the power to appoint the Investigatory Powers Commissioner and other Judicial Commissioners.

In January 2019 the Home Office blocked the appointment of Eric King as head of investigations at IPCO, citing national security grounds. King had previously been director of the Don't Spy On Us coalition, and deputy director of Privacy International for five years. King commented "The problem, at its heart, is that there’s a conflict as to whether my previous work and views are a positive or negative thing. They are both the reason I was hired and the reason my clearance was refused by the Home Office vetting team."

Investigatory Powers Commissioners have been: March 2017 – October 2019 Sir Adrian Fulford October 2019 – present Sir Brian Leveson

Investigatory Powers (Technical Capability) Regulations

The Investigatory Powers (Technical Capability) Regulations 2018 (SI 2018/353) is a statutory instrument set up under the provisions of section 267(3)(i) of the act. It makes provision for the Secretary of State to issue "technical capability notices" to "relevant operators" that require them to give the British government access to their systems.

Authorities allowed to access Internet connection records List of authorities allowed to access Internet connection records without a warrant:

Metropolitan Police Service City of London Police Police forces maintained under section 2 of the Police Act 1996 Police Service of Scotland Police Service of Northern Ireland British Transport Police Ministry of Defence Police Royal Navy Police Royal Military Police Royal Air Force Police Security Service Secret Intelligence Service GCHQ Ministry of Defence Department of Health Home Office Ministry of Justice National Crime Agency HM Revenue & Customs Department for Transport Department for Work and Pensions NHS trusts and foundation trusts in England that provide ambulance services NHS National Services Scotland Competition and Markets Authority Criminal Cases Review Commission Department for Communities (Northern Ireland) Department for the Economy (Northern Ireland) Department of Justice (Northern Ireland) Financial Conduct Authority Fire and rescue authorities under the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 Food Standards Agency Food Standards Scotland Gambling Commission Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority Health and Safety Executive Independent Police Complaints Commission Information Commissioner NHS Business Services Authority Northern Ireland Ambulance Service Health and Social Care Trust Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service Board Health & Social Care Business Services Organisation (Northern Ireland) Office of Communications Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland Police Investigations and Review Commissioner Scottish Ambulance Service Board Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission Serious Fraud Office Welsh Ambulance Services National Health Service Trust

Public debate

The draft bill generated significant public debate about balancing intrusive powers and mass surveillance with the needs of the police and intelligence agencies to gain targeted access to information as part of their investigations. Although the Home Office said the bill would be compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, the content of the draft Bill has raised concerns about the impact on privacy.

Privacy campaigners say the bill clearly lays out the mass surveillance powers that would be at the disposal of the security services, and want it amended so that the surveillance is targeted and based on suspicion and argue that the powers are so sweeping, and the bill's language so general, that not just the security services but also government bodies will be able to analyse the records of millions of people even if they are not under suspicion.