On 1st August 2006, Eastbourne Borough Council adopted a policy to regulate our use of the powers available to us under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA).
RIPA empowers local authorities to carry out certain types of surveillance in specific situations. This is permitted by local authorities only where the surveillance is considered necessary in order to prevent or detect crime and/or to prevent disorder.
This authority takes seriously its responsibilities under RIPA. Its arrangements ensure that the rights of individuals under the Human Rights Act are balanced against the need (where such exists) to engage in surveillance.
Surveillance under RIPA is used only where:
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other, less intrusive, ways of tackling matters are considered to be insufficient and
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the surveillance is judged to be a proportionate response to the particular circumstances.
Review of our RIPA Arrangements
On 1 April 2009, councillors approved proposals to carry out an annual audit of our RIPA policies, procedures and training needs. This council's RIPA arrangements will now be comprehensively reviewed at least every three years by senior officers and by the member RIPA portfolio holder.
The objective of these reviews is to ensure that we:
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test and enhance the safeguards that we have put into place to make sure that we balance the rights of individuals against any need to engage in surveillance
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develop our democratic accountability in terms of how we use these powers.
Our Responsibilities
We take our responsibilities under RIPA seriously and keep them under continual review
We make sure we act in accordance with the law and relevant statutory guidance at all times, and that we follow the best practice recommendations contained within the statutory Codes of Practice on RIPA (most recently updated in April 2010).
With this is mind, this authority ensures that applications to conduct surveillance activity under RIPA are decided only by nominated officers of senior management level who have received relevant training.
Further details of our policy and procedure is contained in our policy document.
Download our RIPA Policy
You can download our RIPA Policies and Procedures document below.
Other information
New statutory codes of practice on RIPA came into force on 6 April 2010 and are available at the Home Office website, along with other relevant information.
