Part 7: Bulk personal dataset warrants Section 217: Approval of major modifications made in urgent cases
This section explains the approval process for urgent major modifications. If the Secretary of State believes that there is an urgent need to make a major modification to a warrant, this may be made without the approval of the Judicial Commissioner. If this happens, a Judicial Commissioner must be informed that the warrant has been modified and, within three working days, decide whether to approve the modification of that warrant and notify the Secretary of State of the decision. This is the same approach as for urgent modifications of targeted interception warrants, and is consistent with equivalent sections in Part 6 of the Act. Subsection (4) explains that if the Commissioner refuses to approve the decision to modify the warrant, the modification ceases to have effect.