10When duty to have full interception capability is complied with

1. A public telecommunications network or a telecommunications service has full interception capability if every surveillance agency that is authorised under an interception warrant or any other lawful interception authority to intercept telecommunications or services on that network, or the network operator concerned, is able to—

2. identify and intercept telecommunications without intercepting telecommunications that are not authorised to be intercepted under the warrant or lawful authority; and
3. obtain traffic data relating to telecommunications (other than telecommunications that are not authorised to be intercepted under the warrant or lawful authority); and
4. obtain traffic data and the content of telecommunications (other than telecommunications that are not authorised to be intercepted under the warrant or lawful authority) in a useable format; and
5. carry out the interception of telecommunications unobtrusively, without unduly interfering with any telecommunications, and in a manner that protects the privacy of telecommunications that are not authorised to be intercepted under the warrant or lawful authority; and
6. undertake the actions referred to in paragraphs (a) to (d) efficiently and effectively and,—
   1. if it is reasonably achievable, at the time of transmission of the telecommunication; or
   2. if it is not reasonably achievable, as close as practicable to that time.

7. If a network operator, or an employee or agent of a network operator, undertakes the interception of a telecommunication on behalf of a surveillance agency under subsection (1), the interception must be taken to be complete when the network operator provides the traffic data or the content of the telecommunication, or both, to the surveillance agency.

8. Nothing in subsection (1)(b) or (c) requires a network operator to be able to obtain specified traffic data relating to a telecommunication carried over a public data network that they own, control, or operate to the extent that the telecommunication is transmitted using a service that—

9. is dependent on Internet access; and
10. is provided by someone other than the network operator.

Guidance note

This subsection relates to telecommunications that pass “over the top” of a public data network using Internet-dependent services provided by a person other than the network operator that owns, controls, or operates the public data network.

For example, an effect of this subsection is that the network operator is not required to be able to obtain information that identifies the nature of a telecommunication as an email or instant message if the network operator does not provide a related email or instant messaging service.

11. A network operator must, in order to comply with subsection (1)(c), decrypt a telecommunication on that operator's public telecommunications network or telecommunications service if—

12. the content of that telecommunication has been encrypted; and
13. the network operator intercepting the telecommunication has provided that encryption.

14. However, subsection (3) does not require a network operator to—

15. decrypt any telecommunication on that operator's public telecommunications network or telecommunications service if the encryption has been provided by means of a product that is—
    1. supplied by a person other than the operator and is available to the public; or
    2. supplied by the operator as an agent for that product; and
16. ensure that a surveillance agency has the ability to decrypt any telecommunication.

17. In this section,—

    specified traffic data, in relation to a telecommunication, means traffic data that identifies the nature of the telecommunication (see section 3AB(1)(a)(i))

    useable format means—

    1. a format that is determined by a notice issued under section 42; or
    2. a format that is acceptable to the network operator and the surveillance agency executing the interception warrant or other lawful interception authority.