Serious Fraud Office, the Independent Police Complaints Commission, the
Ambulance Service and Fire Authorities who are authorised to acquire
communications data.
13. As Sir Swinton Thomas highlighted in his final Annual Report, it would be
impossible for a single Commissioner to inspect and report on all these
organisations on his own. Some inspections are quite lengthy, occasionally
running to several days, and full Reports have to be prepared for each authority
inspected. Accordingly a Chief Inspector and a team of five Inspectors were
recruited to carry out the bulk of the inspections under Part I Chapter II of RIPA
in respect of the acquisition and disclosure of communications data. I retain
personal responsibility for all oversight under Part I Chapter I (Interception of
Communications).
Communications Data and the Work of the Inspectorate
during this Report period
14. The acquisition of communications data is a very valuable investigative tool,
and is primarily aimed at acquiring information in relevant cases as to “who”,
“when” and “where”. It is valuable in terrorist and criminal cases, for example
kidnapping cases, and tracing missing persons and identifying seriously injured
people and attempted suicides (e.g., by the Ambulance Service and the Maritime
and Coastguard Agency).
15. Those public authorities entitled to acquire communications data are set out
in Section 25 of Chapter II of Part I of RIPA and subsidiary legislation and have
been approved by Parliament. The Act defines communications data and in
Section 22 sets out the requirements and conditions that must be fulfilled before
communications data can be acquired. In particular, it must be shown that it is
necessary to acquire the data as defined in the section (e.g., for the purpose of
preventing or detecting crime or preventing death or injury) and is proportionate
to what is sought to be achieved by obtaining the data.
16. The objectives of the Inspectors are to ensure that communications data is
being acquired in accordance with the Act and the draft Code of Practice, and in
particular to ensure that the principles of necessity and proportionality are being
complied with, and to ensure that relevant records are kept, that errors are
reported, and that training for those involved in this area of work is adequate. In
this way independent oversight is provided and good and bad practice is identified
and fed back into the inspection process.
17. Since they commenced their inspections in the autumn of 2005, the Chief
Inspector and the Inspectors have undertaken a significant visits programme:
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101 prisons visited
19 prisons revisited
37 local authorities visited
6 local authorities revisited
52 police forces visited
2 police forces revisited
3 intelligence agencies visited
12 law enforcement agencies visited
12 miscellaneous public authorities visited
It was necessary for the Inspectors to conduct early re-inspections of a few of the
public authorities because some weaknesses were found in parts of their system
and processes, which did not mean that they were acting unlawfully but they did
make it difficult for them to achieve the best possible level of compliance with
the Act and Code of Practice. Without exception these weaknesses were quickly
remedied and the systems were made fit for purpose. In the future re-visits will
be made to ensure that standards are maintained.
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