16.—Section 14 of the Act of 1996 is hereby amended—

(a) in subsections (1), (2) and (4), by the substitution of references to “criminal conduct” for the references in those subsections to “criminal activities”,

(b) in subsection (4)—

(i) by the deletion of “within one week of the date of issuing of the warrant” and the insertion of “within a period to be specified in the warrant”, and

(ii) by the deletion of “any material found at that place, or any material” and the insertion of “any material (other than material subject to legal privilege) found at that place, or any such material”,

(c) by the insertion of the following subsection after subsection (4):

“(4A) The period to be specified in the warrant shall be one week, unless it appears to the judge that another period, not exceeding 14 days, would be appropriate in the particular circumstances of the case.”,

(d) in subsection (5), by substituting “subsection (2)” for “subsection (3)”,

(e) by the insertion of the following subsection after subsection (5):

“(5A) The authority conferred by subsection (4) to seize and retain any material includes, in the case of a document or record, authority—

(a) to make and retain a copy of the document or record, and

(b) where necessary, to seize and retain any computer or other storage medium in which any record is kept.”,

(f) by the insertion of the following subsection after subsection (6):

“(6A) A bureau officer who is a member of the Garda Síochána acting under the authority of a warrant under this section may—

(a) operate any computer at the place which is being searched or cause it to be operated by a person accompanying the member for that purpose, and

(b) require any person at that place who appears to the member to have lawful access to the information in the computer—

(i) to give to the member any password necessary to operate it,

(ii) otherwise to enable the member to examine the information accessible by the computer in a form in which it is visible and legible, or

(iii) to produce the information to the member in a form in which it can be removed and in which it is, or can be made, visible and legible,”,

and

(g) by the substitution of the following subsection for subsection (9):

“(9) In this section—

‘computer at the place which is being searched’ includes any other computer, whether at that place or at any other place, which is lawfully accessible by means of that computer, and

‘material’ includes a copy of the material and a document or record.”.