Figure 12 details the breakdown of the 3,007 interception warrants issued in 2016 by
statutory purpose.
The combination category in Figure 12 represents those few warrants that were
authorised for more than one statutory purpose.
The vast majority of the serious crime warrants fall into one of the following five categories:
unlawful supply of controlled drugs, firearms, financial crime (such as money laundering),
armed robbery and human trafficking.
67 of the 3,007 warrants (approximately 2.2%) were approved urgently by the Secretary
of State under the hand of a Senior Official after consultation with the Secretary of State.
These warrants all related to exceptionally urgent cases where, for example, there was
an imminent threat to life; an imminent threat to national security; a unique opportunity
to obtain intelligence of vital importance to national security; an imminent importation
or handover within the next 24 hours of a substantial quantity of drugs; or a unique
opportunity to obtain intelligence of vital importance in relation to preventing or
detecting serious crime. The majority of those urgently approved were issued on behalf
of the Security Service or the National Crime Agency.
A Secretary of State refused an interception warrant on 5 occasions in 2016. The Government
would argue that this figure is so low because of the high level of scrutiny that is applied
to each warrant application before it is submitted to a Secretary of State. Any interception
warrant is scrutinised by a number of people in the interception agency and the relevant
warrant-granting department before it reaches the Secretary of State. This year, I asked the
interception agencies and warrant-granting departments to capture statistical information
relating to the number of warrants that were subject to challenge or further information
requests by the Senior Official or Secretary of State prior to their being approved, or that
were rejected by the Secretary of State. They reported to us that on 10 occasions, the Senior
Official or Secretary of State called for further information prior to approving a warrant.
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