The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 allows the Secretary of State to issue interception warrants and allows those warrants to be served on persons who can assist in giving effect to them. Anyone who is providing a public telecommunications service who is served with a warrant is obliged to give effect to it. It has always been the case that that applies to any company that offers services to customers in the United Kingdom, irrespective of where it is based.
The territorial extent of RIPA has perhaps never been as explicit as it should have been. As a result, some overseas companies have started to question whether they are obliged to comply with warrants that are served on them. Our judgment is that that situation has reached a dangerous tipping point, and that it is necessary to put it beyond doubt that RIPA applies equally to public telecommunications services that are located overseas and those that are headquartered in the UK.
The clause makes clear Parliament’s intention that RIPA should have extraterritorial jurisdiction. It does that in three ways. First, it specifies that an interception warrant may be served on a company that is located overseas, and that a company providing telecommunications services to customers within the United Kingdom, but which is located overseas, has a duty to provide assistance when served with that warrant. Secondly, it specifies that a notice that is issued under section 12 of RIPA may be given to a company that is providing telecommunications services to customers within the UK, but that is located outside the UK. Such a notice would require the company to put in place the necessary infrastructure to give effect to interception warrants. Thirdly, it specifies, as has always been the case, that a notice under section 22 of RIPA for the provision of communications data may be served on a company outside the UK.
The clause specifies the means by which the serving of a warrant or the giving of a notice may be effected. It also makes clear the obligation to comply with a warrant or notice, and the means by which that obligation may be enforced.