Is the power gaining or declining in importance?
Identify
It is GCHQ’s ability to interrogate the communications data obtained through
bulk interception that provides the key capability to answer questions about
developing incidents as they occur and identify the individuals involved.
Much of the information needed to produce this intelligence is often drawn
from a composite of individual pieces of data that occur weeks or even
months before the event takes place. This information can inform us about
location, contacts of our adversaries or aspects of their behaviour through
technology, but also provides GCHQ with the assurance that an account
targeted for more intrusive content collection does not belong to a UK
individual.
Interception – remain the same / decline
EI – increasing
BPD – increasing
CD – remain the same
Understand
Interception and EI can provide (sometimes real time) intelligence on the
“plans and actions of individual terrorists, criminals and other targets, which
can be used to disrupt or frustrate their plans”.263 These capabilities can also
be used to identify other previously unknown communications of existing
targets – for example a new phone or email address. “The age of ubiquitous
encryption means, inter alia, that GCHQ ... require[s] a more innovative and
agile set of technical capabilities to meet the serious national security
challenges of the digital age. Computer and Network Exploitation [CNE] is
one such capability.”264
Action
Interception – remain the same for cyber defence / decline for
non-cyber defence
EI – increasing
BPD – remain the same for GCHQ
CD – remain the same / decline
For GCHQ, it is the output of analysis of the information obtained under the
bulk powers that is used at this stage, rather than the powers themselves.
GCHQ works with and in support of the other Agencies – for example in
direction support of MI5 counter-terrorism investigations, or assisting SIS with
Agent recruitment, and provides them with intelligence based on information
obtained using the bulk powers. It is true to say that all of the bulk powers are
263
264
Witness statement of Charles Farr in Liberty v Secretary of State for the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office and others [2014] UKIPTrib 13_77-H, para 31.
Witness statement of Ciaran Martin in Privacy International v Secretary of State for Foreign and
Commonwealth Affairs and GCHQ [2016] UKIPTrib 14_85-CH, para 20.
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