IrelandPostal and Telecommunications Services Act 1983, Prohibition on Interception of Telecommunications Messages
Postal and Telecommunications Services Act 1983 s. 98, as amended by the Interception of Postal Packets and Telecommunications Messages (Regulation) Act 1993, s. 13
In force since .
An interception and recording consent rule binding public and private bodies.
- Obligation class
- Prohibition, Consent
What it requires
- Do not listen to, or record by any means, a telecommunications message in the course of its transmission unless either the person on whose behalf the message is sent or the person intended to receive it has consented to the listening or recording.
- If you are a party to a call, being the sender or the intended recipient, your own consent to your own recording of that call is enough to take the recording outside this offence; you do not need the other party's consent as well.
- Do not disclose the existence, substance or content of a message you know was intercepted without that consent, or use any information obtained from it.
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text.
In the frameworks
- NIST Privacy Framework
- CT.PO-P1Policies, processes, and procedures for authorizing data processing (e.g., organizational decisions, individual consent), revoking authorizations, and maintaining authorizations are established and in place.
- FINOS AIGF
- AIR-PREV-005System Acceptance Testing
Our reading of where this law's duties sit in each framework. It never says that running a control meets the law. How we read a framework against the law
If you get it wrong
Criminal exposureYes
Criminal exposure note
A person guilty of an offence under section 98 is liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding 800 pounds or, at the court's discretion, to imprisonment for up to 12 months or both, or, on conviction on indictment, to a fine not exceeding 50,000 pounds or, at the court's discretion, to imprisonment for up to 5 years or both; the court may also order forfeiture of anything used to commit the offence. The Act's published text states these amounts in Irish pounds.
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
Prosecuted as an ordinary criminal offence; the Act names no dedicated regulator for section 98 itself.
Settledness
- As of
- Open questions
- Does the consent of one party to a call under the definition of "intercept" in section 98(6) of the Postal and Telecommunications Services Act 1983 cover a recording made by a third party that the other party has not agreed to?
What this law does
Section 98(1) makes it an offence to intercept, attempt to intercept, authorise or permit another person to intercept, or do anything that will enable interception of, a telecommunications message being transmitted by the telecommunications company, or to disclose or use information from a message so intercepted, subject to investigatory, ministerial-directed and operating-duty exceptions in section 98(2).
Section 13(3) of the Interception of Postal Packets and Telecommunications Messages (Regulation) Act 1993 substituted the section's definition of "intercept": listening to, or recording by any means, a telecommunications message in the course of its transmission, but the definition does not include such listening or recording where either the person on whose behalf the message is transmitted or the person intended to receive it has consented, so one party's own consent to its own recording of a call is enough to take that recording outside the offence.
Section 13(2) of the 1993 Act separately makes it an offence for a company employee to disclose information about a person's use of telecommunications services outside listed exceptions (the customer's own consent, crime prevention, a court order, State security, civil proceedings, or an internal duty to disclose), tightening how a company employee handles the same information the interception offence protects.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app records calls, records text chat or processes voice recordings.
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