BIG BROTHER WATCH AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT
new or amended legislation. In conducting the review the Independent
Reviewer had unrestricted access, at the highest level of security clearance,
to the responsible Government departments and public authorities. He also
engaged with service providers, independent technical experts,
non-governmental organisations, academics, lawyers, judges and regulators.
152. The Independent Reviewer had noted that the statutory framework
governing investigatory powers had “developed in a piecemeal fashion”,
with the consequence that there were “few [laws] more impenetrable than
RIPA and its satellites”.
153. With regard to the importance of communications data, he observed
that they enabled the intelligence services to build a picture of a subject of
interest’s activities and were extremely important in providing information
about criminal and terrorist activity. They identified targets for further work
and also helped to determine if someone was completely innocent. Of
central importance was the ability to use communications data (subject to
necessity and proportionality) for:
(a) linking an individual to an account or action (for example,
visiting a website or sending an email) through IP resolution;
(b) establishing a person’s whereabouts, traditionally via cell site or
GPRS data;
(c) establishing how suspects or victims were communicating (that
is, via which applications or services);
(d) observing online criminality (for example, which websites were
being visited for the purposes of terrorism, child sexual
exploitation or purchases of firearms or illegal drugs); and
(e) exploiting data (for example, to identify where, when and with
whom or what someone was communicating, how malware or a
denial of service attack was delivered, and to corroborate other
evidence).
154. Moreover, analysis of communications data could be performed
speedily, making them extremely useful in fast-moving operations, and use
of communications data could either build a case for using a more intrusive
measure, or deliver the information that would make other measures
unnecessary.
155. The Independent Reviewer’s proposals for reform can be
summarised as follows:
(a) the drafting of a comprehensive and comprehensible new law,
replacing “the multitude of current powers” and providing clear
limits and safeguards on any intrusive power it might be
necessary for public authorities to use;
(b) the review and clarification of the definitions of “content” and
“communications data”;
(c) the retention of the capability of the security and intelligence
services to practice bulk collection of intercepted material and
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