{
  "url": "https://openlegislation.uk/draft-investigatory-powers-codes-of-practice-review-of-notices-and-technical-advisory-board-regulations-2025/note",
  "json_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/draft-investigatory-powers-codes-of-practice-review-of-notices-and-technical-advisory-board-regulations-2025/note.json",
  "legislation": "ukdsi/2025/9780348270716",
  "legislation_title": "The Investigatory Powers (Codes of Practice, Review of Notices and Technical Advisory Board) Regulations 2025",
  "legislation_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/draft-investigatory-powers-codes-of-practice-review-of-notices-and-technical-advisory-board-regulations-2025",
  "path": "note",
  "kind": "note",
  "number": null,
  "heading": "Explanatory note",
  "text": "(This note is not part of the Regulations)\nThese Regulations arise out of some of the changes the Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Act 2024 (c. 9) made to the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 (c. 25) (“the Act”).\nThese Regulations bring into force three new codes and five revised codes of practice issued under paragraph 1(1), paragraph 4 and paragraph 5 of Schedule 7 to the Act. The codes of practice come into force on the day on which these Regulations come into force.\nThe new codes of practice are as follows—\n“Bulk Personal Datasets: Low or no reasonable expectation of privacy” is about the exercise of functions conferred by Part 7A of the Act;\n“Notices Regime” consolidates pre-existing guidance into a single code and provides guidance on the new elements introduced by the Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Act 2024;\n“Third Party Bulk Datasets” is about the exercise of functions conferred by Part 7B of the Act.\nThe revised codes of practice are as follows—\n“Bulk Acquisition of Communications Data” is about the exercise of functions conferred by Chapter 2 of Part 6 of the Act;\n“Bulk Personal Datasets” is about the exercise of functions conferred by Part 7 of the Act;\n“Communications Data” is about the exercise of functions conferred by Part 3 of the Act;\n“Equipment Interference” is about the exercise of functions conferred by Part 5 and Chapter 3 of Part 6 of the Act;\n“Interception of Communications” is about the exercise of functions conferred by Part 2 and Chapter 1 of Part 6 of the Act.\nThe codes of practice will be available on the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 codes of practice pages on the gov.uk website.\nThese Regulations also make changes to the notices regime under the Act. First, the Regulations specify what constitutes a “relevant change” for the purposes of section 258A of the Act. Second, the Regulations amend the Investigatory Powers (Review of Notices and Technical Advisory Board) Regulations 2018 (S.I. 2018/354) (“the 2018 Regulations”) to specify the period of time within which the Secretary of State must complete the review of a notice under sections 90 and 257 of the Act. Third, the Regulations amend the 2018 Regulations with regard to the composition and quorum of the Technical Advisory Board.\nRegulation 3 provides further detail on what is considered a relevant change to an operator’s services or systems which will need to be notified to the Secretary of State under section 258A of the Act. A relevant change is one which would have a material effect on existing lawful access capabilities.\nRegulation 5 inserts two new provisions into the 2018 Regulations. New regulation 2A specifies the overall period within which the Secretary of State must complete the review of a notice (“the review period”). New regulation 2B sets out the period within which the Secretary of State must complete the review of a notice once the Judicial Commissioner and the Technical Advisory Board have provided their reports (“the relevant period”).\nRegulation 6 amends regulation 3 of the 2018 Regulations with regard to the composition of the Technical Advisory Board. The maximum cap on membership is removed, whilst seeking to maintain balance across the different membership groups.\nRegulation 7 substitutes a new regulation for regulation 4 of the 2018 Regulations. The quorum for any meeting of the Technical Advisory Board for the purposes of carrying out its functions under sections 90 and 257 of the IPA is to be seven members and must be balanced across the different membership groups.\nA full impact assessment has not been produced for this instrument as no, or no significant, impact on the private, voluntary or public sectors is foreseen.",
  "extent": null,
  "status": null,
  "version": "current",
  "annotations": [],
  "outstanding_effects": [],
  "provenance": {
    "source": "legislation.gov.uk",
    "source_url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2025/9780348270716/note",
    "retrieved_at": "2026-10-30T14:39:20.965084+00:00"
  },
  "licence": "Open Government Licence v3.0",
  "licence_url": "https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/",
  "attribution": "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives."
}