Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Monetary Penalty Notices and Consents for Interceptions) Regulations 2011

My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend for proposing this statutory instrument. I do so because it strengthens the rights of the individual and is therefore most welcome. However, it is not clear why the privacy directive produced in 2003 was not put in place correctly at the time. It is now some eight years since that occurred. If the Minister is in a position to say a little more about why it has taken so long to put this right, that would be welcome. Two of the three issues raised by the European Commission have now been addressed. Those are, first, the introduction of unintentional as well as intentional interception; and, secondly, the requirement for positive consent by an individual for interception. But a question remains around the role of the independent authority. I would like to be clear about this because the European Commission raised three concerns, the second of which was that: "““The UK had failed to create an independent authority responsible for the supervision of all interception activities as required by Article 28 of the Data Protection Directive””." The Explanatory Notes to the regulations state simply that: "““The Government has not conceded the alleged defective transposition [from the directive] identified””." It is not clear to me quite why the Government have not conceded that. That takes me on to the issue of the Information Commissioner, as distinct from the Interception of Communications Commissioner. The office of the Information Commissioner submitted a lengthy response to the consultation to this RIPA regulation, from which I will quote from paragraph 1.5: "““If personal data is intercepted unlawfully under section 1(1) of RIPA this may also constitute a breach of the first data protection principle. It will be important therefore to draft the legislation in a way which allows the ICO to work with the IoCC once it has been established if an interception is unintentionally unlawful””." The question is this: is the Office of the Information Commissioner satisfied with the result of the consultation and the statutory instrument? I have two final points on which I would appreciate guidance from the Minister. First, are we clear on how consent will be given to the monitoring of communications? In other words, how the opt-in is taken by an individual is extremely important. Secondly, how soon might we review this statutory instrument? A year or two from now, will there be a further review to assess whether what we have proposed in meeting the European directive has been achieved?