Investigatory Powers Act 2016, Unlawful Interception and Lawful Business Monitoring

Investigatory Powers Act 2016, ss. 3, 8, 44 and 46; S.I. 2018/356

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What follows is LexLint's own research summary of this law, not legal advice.

In force since 27 June 2018.

An interception and recording consent rule binding public and private bodies.

As of 25 September 2026.

What it requires

Do not intentionally intercept, or procure another person to intercept, a communication in the course of its transmission by a telecommunication system or a public postal service in the United Kingdom unless you have lawful authority to do so.
Before you make the content of a call or message available to anyone who is neither its sender nor its intended recipient, a recording, transcription or monitoring vendor included, get the consent of both the sender and the intended recipient or rely on the business-monitoring authority below; recording a call you are a party to, for your own use, is not interception.
If you are a business, a government department, a public authority, or another body exercising a statutory function, you may record or monitor communications on your own telecommunication system for a listed legitimate purpose, such as establishing facts, checking compliance with regulatory standards, or securing the system's own effective operation, if you have made all reasonable efforts to tell every person who may use the system that their communications on it may be intercepted.
If you control a private telecommunication system, do not intercept communications on it without lawful authority: the criminal offence excludes you, but the sender or the intended recipient can sue you for it.

If you get it wrong

Criminal exposureYes

Private right of actionYes

Criminal exposure note

A person who commits the offence of unlawful interception is liable, on summary conviction in England and Wales to a fine, on summary conviction in Scotland or Northern Ireland to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum, or on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for up to two years or a fine, or both.

Who enforces it

Enforcement body

Prosecution by, or with the consent of, the Director of Public Prosecutions (or the Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland); a civil claim under section 8 is brought by the affected sender or recipient.

What it reaches

Obligation class

Prohibition, Consent

What this law does

Drafted with AI from the cited sources under the direction of UnGovr staff. UnGovr holds editorial responsibility for this page.

Section 3 makes it a criminal offence to intentionally intercept a communication in the course of its transmission by a public or private telecommunication system or a public postal service in the United Kingdom without lawful authority, though a private system's own controller, or someone with that person's express or implied consent, does not commit this offence by intercepting on it.

Under section 4 a person intercepts a communication only if the effect of what they do is to make its content available to a person who is not its sender or intended recipient, so a party who records a call for their own use is outside the offence.

Section 44 gives lawful authority to intercept where both the sender and the intended recipient have consented, or where one of them has consented and surveillance by that interception is separately authorised under Part 2 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.

Section 46, read with the Investigatory Powers (Interception by Businesses etc. for Monitoring and Record-keeping Purposes) Regulations 2018, gives lawful authority to a business, government department, public authority, or other body exercising a statutory function to intercept its own communications for a listed purpose, such as establishing facts, checking regulatory compliance, or securing the system's effective operation, on conditions including that the body has made all reasonable efforts to inform every person who may use the system that their communications may be intercepted.

Section 8 gives the sender or the intended recipient of a communication a civil claim against a private telecommunication system's own controller who intercepts it without lawful authority. The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000's own interception offence and civil-liability provisions were repealed in stages during 2018 as this Act's provisions came into force.

When LexLint raises it

records_conversations
processes_voice

Read the law

legislation.gov.uk, official text of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016

Every line above is drawn from the primary source linked here, read on the date shown. This is a research summary, not legal advice.

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