BIG BROTHER WATCH AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT
and any reference in this Act to preventing or detecting serious crime shall be
construed accordingly ...”
65. Section 6 provided that in respect of the intelligence services, only
the Director General of MI5, the Chief of MI6 and the Director of GCHQ
could have applied for an intercept warrant.
66. There were two types of intercept warrant to which sections 5 and 6
applied: a targeted warrant as provided for by section 8(1), and an
untargeted warrant as provided for by section 8(4).
67. By virtue of section 9 of RIPA, a warrant issued in the interests of
national security or for safeguarding the economic well-being of the United
Kingdom ceased to have effect at the end of six months, and a warrant
issued for the purpose of detecting serious crime ceased to have effect after
three months. At any time before the end of those periods, the Secretary of
State was able to renew the warrant (for periods of six and three months
respectively) if he or she believed that the warrant continued to be necessary
on grounds falling within section 5(3). The Secretary of State was required
to cancel an interception warrant if he or she was satisfied that the warrant
was no longer necessary on grounds falling within section 5(3).
68. Pursuant to section 5(6), the conduct authorised by an interception
warrant had to be taken to include the interception of communications not
identified by the warrant if necessary to do what was expressly authorised or
required by the warrant; and the obtaining of related communications data.
69. Section 21(4) defined “communications data” as
(a) any traffic data comprised in or attached to a communication (whether by
the sender or otherwise) for the purposes of any postal service or
telecommunication system by means of which it is being or may be
transmitted;
(b) any information which includes none of the contents of a communication
(apart from any information falling within paragraph (a)) and is about the
use made by any person—
i.
of any postal service or telecommunications service; or
ii.
in connection with the provision to or use by any person of any
telecommunications service, of any part of a telecommunication
system;
(c) any information not falling within paragraph (a) or (b) that is held or
obtained, in relation to persons to whom he provides the service, by a
person providing a postal service or telecommunications service.”
70. The March 2015 Acquisition and Disclosure of Communications
Data Code of Practice referred to these three categories as “traffic data”,
“service use information”, and “subscriber information”. Section 21(6) of
RIPA further defined “traffic data” as data which identified the person,
apparatus, location or address to or from which a communication was
transmitted, and information about a computer file or program accessed or
run in the course of sending or receiving a communication.
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