Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Act 2024

Overview of the Act

Reproduced verbatim from the Explanatory Notes published with the Act on legislation.gov.uk (Crown Copyright, Open Government Licence v3.0). Explanatory Notes are prepared by the responsible government department and are not part of the Act.

The Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Act updates elements of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 (IPA 2016) to ensure the United Kingdom’s (UK) investigatory powers framework remains fit for purpose in the face of evolving threats.

The introduction of this Act follows the publication of the Home Secretary’s statutory report on the IPA 2016 in February 2023 1 , and a subsequent independent review by the former Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, Lord Anderson of Ipswich KBE KC, published in June 2023 2 . These reports set out the case for change and Lord Anderson’s report broadly endorsed the proposed policy approaches.

The key objective of the Act is to make targeted reforms to the IPA 2016 to ensure that it remains fit-for-purpose for intelligence services, law enforcement and other public authorities.