Issue - meetings

To report on the Council’s activities relating to surveillance under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) for 2021.

The Committee were presented with the Annual Report on the Council’s activities relating to surveillance under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) for 2021.

The following matters were considered:

a)            Correction of Report. The Committee noted a typographical error to paragraph 1.1 of the report. The Interim Director of Corporate Services informed the Committee of the following correction:

·                     That the final sentence of paragraph 1.1 be deleted.

This correction was required as the report incorrectly stated that the Committee was required to approve the Policy.

a)            Use of Mobile CCTV. Following a question, the Interim Director of Corporate Services informed the Committee that he understood that the use of Mobile CCTV does not require RIPA authorisation unless it is covert in nature. The Interim Director agreed to investigate the requirements surrounding the use of mobile CCTV and report back to the Committee on this matter. A Member of the Committee responded to follow up on enquiries that they had previously made about the use of mobile CCTV in relation to possible misdemeanours within their ard, and queried the lack of use of RIPA surveillance over recent years.

The Interim Director of Corporate Services agreed to follow up on the Member’s enquiries about RIPA surveillance and supply supplementary information about its uses.

b)            Covert surveillance. The Committee noted that covert surveillance had been used successfully in the past to take action on certain offences that have been committed.

Following consideration, the Committee unanimously resolved to:

(1)      Note the report of the Council’s use of its RIPA powers for 2021 and 2022.