Regulations to help enforce the Department of Trade and Industry's (DTI) new legislation to allow "lawful" interception of telecommunications, including employees telephone calls and e-mails, were put out for consultation last Tuesday. All replies are required to be returned just over three weeks later on 25th August.
The DTI appears to be behind schedule in making the act workable however. The Act itself, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Act received royal assent last month, but the regulations which would help enforce the act have yet to be put in place. The Act becomes law in October of this year.
The Bill received notoriety because of the proposed plans to allow police to intercept e-mails, and the requirement for internet service providers (ISPs) to install black boxes to monitor e-mail traffic.
The regulations now out for consultation, centre on the rights of employers to monitor e-mails and telephone calls. The new Act says that before intercepting such communications, the employer needs to have reasonable grounds to believe that callers or e-mail users had consented to the interception. The regulations particularly look at the exceptions to that, and suggest that exceptions may be made to check compliance, to prevent the production or spreading of computer viruses and to detect crime.
