The Court of Appeal has partly allowed an appeal by Moeen Akram, finding that an immigration officer acted outside statutory powers by copying information from his phone and retaining the copies after examining them. The court did not overturn the decision to refuse him permission to enter Ireland.
Akram, a Pakistani national who was then studying in Cyprus, arrived at Dublin Airport on 21 October 2017 with a travel visa. An immigration officer refused him permission to land under section 4(3)(k) of the Immigration Act 2004, which applies where there is reason to believe a non-national intends to enter for a purpose other than the one stated. Akram was detained at Cloverhill Prison until his removal from the State four days later.
He challenged the refusal and detention by judicial review, and later added a claim concerning the search of his phone. The officer’s notes recorded messages that prompted questions about Akram’s intentions, including whether he planned to reside in Ireland or was arranging a marriage of convenience. Akram denied those suggestions. The High Court rejected his challenges.
On appeal, the Court of Appeal upheld the High Court’s refusal to quash the entry decision. It found that the written statutory ground, considered alongside the questions put to Akram at the airport, gave him sufficient reason to understand why he was being refused entry. It also rejected his argument that a notebook reference to his brother’s possible sham marriage was an irrelevant consideration.
The court held that section 7(3) of the 2004 Act allowed an immigration officer to examine information stored on a phone as “documents” in non-legible form. But the power to detain documents was limited to the time needed for that examination. The officer had photographed messages displayed on the phone and those copies remained in official possession after Akram had been removed.
The court declared that copying and retaining the documents was not permitted by section 7(3) and was incompatible with the State’s obligations under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. It did not decide whether the broader search power lacked adequate safeguards, or whether the search was “necessary in a democratic society”; those issues were unnecessary to resolve the pleaded claim. The declaration was separate from the entry decision and did not invalidate it.
The court allowed the appeal only on the phone-copying and retention issue. It directed that, if the parties did not agree on costs within 14 days, the Registrar would arrange a hearing on any costs application.