New legislation to allow organisations to monitor use of IT systems for legitimate business reasons

Implementation date: 27 June 2018

The Investigatory Powers (Interception by Businesses etc for Monitoring and Record-keeping Purposes) Regulations 2018 (SI 2018/356) provide that organisations and public bodies may lawfully intercept communications being sent via their telecommunications systems for certain legitimate business activities. These activities include establishing whether or not staff using the organisation's telecommunications system are achieving the standards required by the company in the course of their duties. The Regulations are designed to replace (and largely mirror) the Telecommunications (Lawful Business Practice) (Interception of Communications) Regulations 2000 (SI 2000/2699).