The Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Maintenance of Interception Capability) Order 2002

• Citation: S.I. 2002/1931
• Sections: 18

Section 1 Citation, commencement and interpretation

(1) This Order may be cited as the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Maintenance of Interception Capability) Order 2002 and shall come into force on 1st August 2002.

(2) In this Order “service provider” means a person providing a public postal service or a public telecommunications service, or proposing to do so.

Section 2 Interception capability

(1) The Schedule to this Order sets out those obligations which appear to the Secretary of State reasonable to impose on service providers for the purpose of securing that it is and remains practicable for requirements to provide assistance in relation to interception warrants to be imposed and complied with.

(2) Subject to paragraph (3) the obligations in—

(a) Part I of the Schedule only apply to service providers who provide, or propose to provide, a public postal service; and

(b) Part II of the Schedule only apply to service providers who provide, or propose to provide, a public telecommunications service.

(3) The obligations in Part II of the Schedule shall not apply to service providers who—

(a) do not intend to provide a public telecommunications service to more than 10,000 persons in any one or more parts of the United Kingdom and do not do so; or

(b) only provide, or propose to provide, a public telecommunications service in relation to the provision of banking, insurance, investment or other financial services.

Section 3 Interception capability notices

(1) The Secretary of State may give a service provider a notice requiring him to take all such steps falling within paragraph (2) as may be specified or described in the notice.

(2) Those steps are ones appearing to the Secretary of State to be necessary for securing that the service provider has the practical capability of meeting the obligations set out in the Schedule to this Order.

Section 4 Referral of notices to the Technical Advisory Board

The period within which any person to whom a notice has been given under article 3 may refer the notice to the Technical Advisory Board is specified as being before the end of 28 days from the date of the notice.

Section 1

To ensure the interception and temporary retention of postal items destined for addresses in the United Kingdom for provision to the person on whose application the interception warrant was issued.

Section 2

To provide for the interception and retention of postal items sent by identified persons where the carrier keeps records of who sent which item in the course of their normal business.

Section 3

To maintain a system of opening, copying and resealing of any postal item carried for less than £1.

Section 4

To comply with the obligations set out in paragraphs 1 to 3 above in such a manner that the chance of the interception subject or other unauthorised persons becoming aware of any interception is minimised.

Section 5

To provide a mechanism for implementing interceptions within one working day of the service provider being informed that the interception has been appropriately authorised.

Section 6

To ensure the interception, in their entirety, of all communications and related communications data authorised by the interception warrant and to ensure their simultaneous (i.e. in near real time) transmission to a hand-over point within the service provider’s network as agreed with the person on whose application the interception warrant was issued.

Section 7

To ensure that the intercepted communication and the related communications data will be transmitted so that they can be unambiguously correlated.

Section 8

To ensure that the hand-over interface complies with any requirements communicated by the Secretary of State to the service provider, which, where practicable and appropriate, will be in line with agreed industry standards (such as those of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute).

Section 9

To ensure filtering to provide only the traffic data associated with the warranted telecommunications identifier, where reasonable.

Section 10

To ensure that the person on whose application the interception warrant was issued is able to remove any electronic protection applied by the service provider to the intercepted communication and the related communications data.

Section 11

To enable the simultaneous interception of the communications of up to 1 in 10,000 of the persons to whom the service provider provides the public telecommunications service, provided that those persons number more than 10,000.

Section 12

To ensure that the reliability of the interception capability is at least equal to the reliability of the public telecommunications service carrying the communication which is being intercepted.

Section 13

To ensure that the intercept capability may be audited so that it is possible to confirm that the intercepted communications and related communications data are from, or intended for the interception subject, or originate from or are intended for transmission to, the premises named in the interception warrant.

Section 14

To comply with the obligations set out in paragraphs 5 to 13 above in such a manner that the chance of the interception subject or other unauthorised persons becoming aware of any interception is minimised.