Part 1: Bulk Personal Datasets Low or no reasonable expectation of privacy New section 226BA of the IPA 2016: Category authorisation
This section provides for "category authorisations", which permit the head of an intelligence service, or a person acting on their behalf, to authorise a category of bulk personal datasets for the purposes of Part 7A if they consider that s226A applies to any dataset that falls within the category described in the authorisation (including by reference to the use to which the datasets will be put). The decision to grant the authorisation must be approved by a JC.
	A category authorisation is different to an individual authorisation. An individual authorisation authorises the retention, or retention and examination, of a BPD to which section 226A applies. A category authorisation effectively disapplies – per section 226A(6)(a) – the requirement for judicial approval where an individual authorisation pertains to a dataset that falls within a category authorisation. That is because a decision will already have been made, and approved by a JC, that any dataset that falls within the description in the category authorisation is a dataset to which section 226A would apply.