Internal documents
8.29.
There is abundant internal documentation evidencing the value of BPDs to the
SIAs.
8.30.
I was shown MI6 business proposals dating from 2005 to 2011 in respect of the
development of BPDs. The earliest documents set out the need for such
datasets and the budget required for them; subsequent documents track the
development of BPD systems and the need for funds to be spent on upgrading
them. In 2011 the BPD system was described as “a mission critical tool which is
highly valued by the Service and is making an important contribution to the work
of operational teams”. The same document described BPDs being used to
produce new intelligence, develop knowledge of current operations, carry out
agent recruitment, tasking and evaluation and identify operational threats. It was
claimed that BPDs “were considered to have the potential to save lives”, and
described them as “a vital tool to operational officers, who are demanding more
from the system than was planned”.
8.31.
MI5 documents are extremely supportive of the value of BPDs. For example:
(a) In an internal document of July 2014, the Deputy Director General wrote: “It
is clear that access to BPD is now critical to our core investigative,
operational and analytical businesses ... its value is beyond doubt.”
(b) A bulk data strategy document from 2014 stated that BPDs were “an
essential part” of MI5’s work to address gaps in its coverage, a conclusion
repeated in a paper setting out MI5’s 2015-16 strategy for its Northern
Ireland operations.
(c) A strategy paper of June 2015, addressing the use of BPDs in counterterrorism operations, noted:
“Although BPD provides little or no insight into the mind-set or intent of
an individual, its key advantage is the breadth of coverage. Our ability
to fuse multiple expansive data sets for analysis offers unprecedented
opportunities to resolve complete identities of individuals based on
partial details ... As such BPD is fundamental to CT investigations ...”.
(d) An internal paper dated July 2015, written for MI5’s Executive Board, stated
that “we derive significant value from our bulk data holdings” and that “The
rapid development of new technologies and data types (e.g. increased
automation, machine learning, predictive analytics) hold additional promise
...”.
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