The time is right to review legislation which gives the police and Security Service the power to access private communications as part of their investigations, according to the Opposition spokesman for the area, Jason Azzopardi.

“I think that most laws that have been in force for almost 20 years, as has the Security Service Act (the law was passed in 1996), should be up for review, but this is especially the case for this sector, which changed radically during this period,” Dr Azzopardi said.

He was reacting to comments given to The Sunday Times of Malta by the watchdog for the Malta Security Service (MSS), Judge Frank Camilleri, who also said the law regulating Malta’s intelligence agency needed revising.

However, Dr Azzopardi widened the brief to include the laws giving the police access to some communication in the course of their investigations.

There are broadly two types of interceptions: metadata (phone call history, phone location information and internet browsing history) normally accessed by the police; and phone or internet tapping, which is only accessible to the MSS but which the agency can carry out without anyone’s knowledge.

The latter type of interception is completely secret but the agency is legally obliged to obtain a warrant beforehand from the Home Affairs Minister.

Dr Azzopardi pointed out that the Data Retention Directive, which provides the framework for the 2008 law empowering the police to access such information in the way it does, was recently declared to be invalid by the European Court of Justice.

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