Guidance

Ofsted’s directed surveillance policy

Ofsted's policy on carrying out directed surveillance under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) 2000 to prevent or detect a crime.

From:
Ofsted
Published
9 October 2020
Last updated
19 January 2023 — See all updates

Applies to England

Documents

Ofsted's directed surveillance policy

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Details

Ofsted is authorised under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) 2000 to carry out directed surveillance in order to prevent or detect a crime. We will only use directed surveillance if we cannot obtain the necessary information in any other way.

Directed surveillance means surveillance that is:

  • covert, but not intrusive
  • carried out for the purposes of a specific investigation or operation related to the preventing or detecting of crime
  • likely to result in the obtaining of private information about a person or persons
  • carried out in a way that is premeditated, rather than, for example, the chance observations of an inspector attending a setting to carry out an inspection

This policy sets out our legal powers, our authorisation process, the records we keep and how we will retain any evidence.

Updates to this page

Published 9 October 2020
Last updated 19 January 2023 + show all updates

  1. Updates made to the ‘Obtaining RIPA authorisation’ and ‘Cancelling authorisation’ sections. Added a new section on ‘Errors’.

  2. First published.

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