Ms Elizabeth Farries:

The High Court is appropriate for giving orders to release the data, which was the recommendation of the Murray review with respect to journalists data. If, as was submitted last week, we want to have a consistent standard for everyone, then it is for the High Court to give those orders. At a larger level, judicial oversight through judgments is helpful but it is a very specialised area that generalist judges are often ill-equipped to deal with in terms of the technological expertise. To that end, we need to have someone who is designated, with proper advice, either on a contractual basis or an employed agent to oversee this in a way that necessitates the protections of our fundamental rights and freedoms. This is a new landscape. Simply having a panel of judges that occasionally look at these matters is not sufficient.