quantities of data not relating to current targets, but which fall outside the scope
of this Review, are in particular:
(a) the power currently exercised under DRIPA 2014 to require CSPs to retain
phone and email records, for the use (principally) of police [the DRIPA
power];54
(b) the proposed new power to require the retention of ICRs [the ICR power];55
(c) the power to “target” an interception warrant on multiple persons or
organisations who “carry on, or may carry on, a particular activity” or “for the
purposes of a single investigation or operation”, without necessarily knowing
all their identities [the thematic interception power];56 and
(d) the power to “target” equipment interference on equipment “in a particular
location”, equipment that “may be being used, for the purpose of a particular
activity or activities of a particular description” and so on [the thematic EI
power].57
It will be necessary to return to some of those powers for the purposes of
assessing, in chapters 5-8, whether the objectives of the powers under review
could be met as effectively by the use of other capabilities.
(1) Bulk Interception
Nature of bulk interception
2.6.
The first power under review is the bulk interception of communications, which
can be dated back to the interception of messages carried on the international
cable system during the First World War.58 The power is currently provided for
(obscurely) in RIPA 2000 s 8(4),59 and will in future be exercised under the bulk
interception warrants provided for in Part 6 Chapter 1 of the Bill.
2.7.
In the words of the open Operational Case (7.1):
“Bulk interception is a capability designed to obtain foreign-focused
intelligence and identify individuals, groups and organisations overseas that
pose a threat to the UK. It allows the security and intelligence agencies to
intercept the communications of individuals outside the UK and then filter and
54
55
56
57
58
59
Part 4 of the Bill; 2.33 below.
Clauses 59(6) and 83(9). As noted above, ICRs are a type of communications data.
Part 2 of the Bill, clause 17(2).
Part 5 of the Bill, clause 95.
It is claimed that bulk access to that commercially operated system enabled the collection of
the Zimmerman telegram, the final trigger for US entry into the First World War, and detected
attempts to evade the UK’s economic blockade of Germany.
See further AQOT 6.45-6.59.
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