officer at HM Customs and Excise working on the operation. I understand that
Security Service staff have now been reminded of their responsibilities in
handling legally privileged material
48. The ninth error occurred when a warrant contained an incorrect
telephone number; individual digits within the number being transposed
incorrectly. On discovery, the unlawful intercept was suspended and the copies
of all the relevant transcriptions destroyed.
49. The reasons for the remaining five errors occurring were the Security
Service’s failure to cancel a warrant imposed under emergency procedures
prior to its expiry date; their incorrect request to delete both lines covered by a
warrant and not just the line they intended; their failure to request the deletion
of a number from a warrant and the failure to subsequently cancel the warrant
itself; and their using an incorrect postcode in an emergency modification to a
warrant.
50. The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) reported one breach and two errors.
The breach and first error occurred under one submission. The breach arose
from a mistake by a SIS operational team member which resulted in transposed
digits in the telephone number being used in the warrant application. The error
resulted from the use of what subsequently turned out to be an out-of- date
number given to SIS by the Security Service from a departmental file. My view
is that it would be unreasonable to blame SIS for being given, and acting on,
wrong information.
51. The second error occurred through a lapse in SIS’s internal procedures.
The late cancellation of an intercept with a CSP resulted in interception of a
number continued for one day after the deletion instrument relating to that
number had been signed. SIS has reviewed their procedures and taken steps to
prevent a reoccurrence of a similar lapse.
52. HM Customs and Excise (HMCE) reported one error. It occurred when a
modification was made to a schedule adding a telephone number to the
warrant. Unfortunately the telephone number in the schedule included one
incorrect digit. No product had been received and HMCE staff were duly
reminded of the importance of their checking procedures
53. No errors were reported by the Ministry of Defence, Metropolitan Police
Special Branch and the National Criminal Intelligence Service.
54. I now turn to give two examples of the ten errors made by the
communications service providers (CSPs). The first occurred under a Scottish
Executive warrant. The Scottish Executive advised the appropriate CSP of the
telephone number to be intercepted but the CSP mistakenly transposed two
digits in the number. Since the error occurred, the CSP concerned has reviewed
its procedures to prevent a similar recurrence in the future.
55. The second example concerns a wrongly intercepted telephone number.
A CSP received a verbal warrant modification request to intercept a mobile
number. Their hand written records show that details of the number to be
intercepted were correctly recorded at that time and a feasibility check
confirmed the correct target. The details of the target were then entered into
the CSP’s operational database. It was at this stage that a human error occurred
in that the penultimate digit was incorrect input. No calls were intercepted
during the period of this illegal interception.
10