Talk:Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000
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[edit] The Nature of the RIP Act
This article is rather cryptic on the nature of the burden placed on ISPs, and it's civil liberties implications. As I understand it the ISPs are required to maintain a database of all internet access by all their clients: so every web page requested, email sent, etc, has it's header information (but not the full content) recorded by the ISP, to be made available to various agencies on request (originally only with a warrant I believe, but that may have been weakened; they certainly wanted to open it up to a much wider group of agencies). The data thus collected was to be maintained for seven years, if I remember correctly. Effectively this would be a form of pre-emptive surveillance, where they do the surveillance first, and only decide later if they need to use it.
There were a number of other provisions in the original bill. For example, it would be an imprisonable offence for a ISP employee to fail to comply with a request (properly made) to disclose this information. It would also be an imprisonable offence to inform the person under surveillance that this information had been disclosed, without limitation on time, and even if no charges or other action was ever taken against the client in question.
Another concern, at the time, was that the bill was loosely worded in such a way that it was not clear what scope of services where included (for example, mobile phone text messages, telephone calls).
[edit] Name
Any reason for this not being at Regulation of Investigatory Powers? Were there two? Martin [22:24, 20 May 2003 (UTC)]
- Not that I'm aware of; any objections to moving it? — Matt 07:11, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Burden of proof
"The accused must prove that they do not have the key, claiming to have mislaid or forgotten it might not be accepted as a defence." What if the accused claims never to have possessed the key? The article is not clear on this point; the text of the Act seems to imply that a prosecutor needs to prove that the accused possessed the key at some time, but it isn't entirely clear and various popular accounts suggest the opposite.
- AIUI, which is mainly a result of having talked about the Act with people who have read it and understand it far better than I ever will, the burden of proof would, rather inexplicably, rest on the defence, not the prosecution, in showing that the defendent had at no time had the said key. Lovely, isn't it? Maybe someone more knowledgable could comment, and correct/update?
- James F. (talk) 01:11, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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- This seems to be the case, but I don't know much about this. This site analyses a variety of scenarios, and number 14 touches on this, suggesting that Bob sending Alice a message using her public key is sufficient grounds to believe that Alice once owned a corresponding private key, "Alice had had the key"...— Matt 04:46, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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- Number 14 relates to the reverse onus regarding continued possession, in a case where past possession is presumably an undisputed fact; "That Alice had had the key ... which indeed she had" is specifically listed as one of the things that the prosecution has to show. This example does not directly address the question of the onus of proof regarding whether the defendant ever possessed the key; I don't even see how one can read into it any inference from circumstantial evidence, as you are apparently doing.
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[edit] Misunderstanding of effects
The title is the Regulation, not the Provision. of investigatory powers. Headlines about the application of the Act to local Councils included claims of 'Dustbin men reading your e-amils' whereas the application was to limit powers already contained in e.g. Trade Marks Act
