analyse that material in order to identify communications of intelligence
value.”60
2.8.
A bulk interception warrant under the Bill will allow interception principally
focused on “overseas-related communications” 61 in the course of transmission,
the obtaining of “secondary data” 62 relating to intercepted communications, the
selection for examination as described in the warrant of intercepted content or
secondary data, and its disclosure.
2.9.
The less intrusive option is also available of a bulk interception warrant that
authorises the obtaining of secondary data only (clause 127(2)(b)).63
Thematic v bulk interception
2.10.
It is clear from the Bill (clause 17) that a targeted interception warrant need not
relate only to a single person or set of premises, but may relate also to
“a group of persons who share a common purpose or who carry on, or may
carry on, a particular activity”
and to
“more than one person or organisation, or more than one set of premises,
where the conduct authorised or required by the warrant is for the purposes of
a single investigation or operation”.
The thematic interception power, as it was referred to at 2.5(c) above, is thus a
broad one.
2.11.
The draft Code of Practice notes that “There is not a limit to the number of
locations, persons or organisations that can be provided for by a thematic
warrant”, and that “the warrant does not have to identify the subjects of the
warrant any more than is possible at the time of the issue of the warrant”.
2.12.
60
61
62
63
The potential scope of the thematic interception power is not as strikingly broad
as that of the thematic EI power, and there is no equivalent section to 8.5-8.8 of
the Operational Case, in which the Government warns that targeted thematic EI
See, further, the Interception of Communications draft Code of Practice, laid before Parliament
when the Bill was introduced on 1 March 2016.
These are defined as communications sent or received by individuals who are outside the
British Islands: clause 127(3).
Secondary data and equipment data are non-content data obtained under interception
warrants and equipment interference warrants respectively. Both categories (which are very
similar) comprise systems data, which enables or otherwise facilitates the functioning of any
system or service provided by the system (and which includes the communications data that
can be obtained by means of a communications data authorisation), and identifying data
which is capable of being logically separated from the rest of the communication or item of
information.
As advised in AQOT, Recommendation 42(b).
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