We are unfortunately not able to shed further light in an open document on the
reasons why such high numbers of applications are recorded.
6.11.
More readily comprehensible is the statistic that approximately 5% of GCHQ’s
intelligence reporting each year contains material from at least one s94 source.
The majority of those reports are related to counter-terrorism, with other major
areas including serious crime and certain geo-political reporting.
Case studies (Annex 9)
6.12.
The case studies are summarised at Annex 9. MI5 provided the Review team
with written details of 25 cases. MI5 managers and analysts then gave a
presentation to the team, and supplied contemporaneous documents. The team
members were able to question staff who were familiar with the operations
described in the case studies.
6.13.
All the case studies relating to the use of bulk acquisition were provided by MI5,
although in A8/1 GCHQ provided an example of the combined use of bulk
interception and communications data. The case studies concerned principally
Islamist extremist activity in the UK and abroad, and dissident republican activity
in Northern Ireland.
6.14.
The cases provide illustrations of all three of the Identify, Understand, Action
categories described by the SIAs (and set out in chapter 4 above). However, the
majority of the cases concerned the earlier stages of operations – generally the
Identify and Understand stages, involving target identification and development.
This pattern reflected the view given to the Review team by MI5 managers that
the use of bulk acquisition (and bulk powers in general) was most valuable at the
triaging stage, in order to establish the identity of an individual. We were told that
at the stage at which action was required, for example to disrupt a terrorist
threat, resources would always be found to take that action. If bulk powers were
not available, then other means would be used. However, in the view of MI5
managers, the use of bulk powers was crucial in swiftly obtaining the knowledge
necessary for action to be taken.
6.15.
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Seven of the case studies (A9/1-7) involved the use of bulk acquisition to identify
a person of interest. In three of those cases (A9/1,3,4) a real terrorist threat to
the UK was identified and steps taken to mitigate that threat. In two others, MI5
identified and was able to counter a threat of espionage (A9/5,7).
Ibid., 8.70. Some 20,000 applications produced more than 120,000 items of communications
data because a single application may request several items of data relating, for example, to a
target’s telephone number.
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