I thank the noble and learned Lord for what he has said, but I did ask whether he would be prepared to offer an opinion about the deployment of a covert camera into somebody’s home without the need for either Secretary of State or judicial commissioner approval and what, in the Government’s opinion, is the right level of authority. I accept what he says about an interception warrant being required if equipment interference is for the purpose of intercepting communication. However, if it is for the purpose of observing what is going on inside an office or a home, I do not believe that that amounts to interception of communication as such, even though the people who are present in the room are communicating with each other. I do not think that amounts to interception of communication as intended by the Bill.
The other issue that I was hoping the noble and learned Lord could enlighten the Committee on is that equipment interference warrants issued to the security services require the double lock of the Secretary of State and a judicial commissioner, but equipment
interference warrants issued to law enforcement do not require that double lock, because a police chief can self-authorise the issuing of such a warrant to such agencies. We have to bear in mind how intrusive that can be. We have already discussed that the equipment interference may not necessarily be in order to intercept communication, and the noble and learned Lord gave the example earlier of looking for a pornographic image on a computer. Despite what he said, it still seems an anomaly that the security services require a double-lock authority and the police do not.