The list of "equipment interference agencies" includes "Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs" (HMRC). For those of you not in the UK, that's the people responsible for collecting tax.
Why would the tax department ever be allowed to do something like this directly? They seem incapable of fairly collecting the taxes of the country, what business do they have acting as an "equipment interference agency"?
They have an investigatory arm of their own and have been known to go after corporate data, particularly email, as part of looking into what they believe may be tax fraud.
One could reasonably question why this isn't a department or division of another agency, perhaps NCA, but I think it's a fair statement that forensic accounting and investigation is a somewhat specialised skill.
And also the Competition and Markets Authority, who will be able to obtain a warrant to hack corporate servers in order to investigate 'serious crimes' as defined by the Enterprise Act.
Why would the tax department ever be allowed to do something like this directly? They seem incapable of fairly collecting the taxes of the country, what business do they have acting as an "equipment interference agency"?