2013 Annual Report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner
essentially the public authorities are only required to report the number of authorisations
and notices (written and oral) and the number of applications rejected.
Figure 5 RIPA 2000 Part I Chapter II Authorisations & Notices by Data Type
traffic data
30%
subscriber information
53%
combination
13%
service use
information
4%
4.19 The statistical information required by the Code of Practice is flawed for the
following reasons:
•
•
•
more than 1 item of data may be requested on an authorisation or notice and
therefore the number of individual items of communications data requested
is not reported. It is likely that this figure would be higher than the number of
authorisations and notices.
the different workflow systems in use by public authorities have different
counting mechanisms for notices and authorisations. For example, one
public authority may request data in relation to 3 telephone numbers on
1 notice, whereas another public authority may request the same 3 items
of data on 3 separate notices. The result would be an over inflated number
of authorisations and notices for the second public authority. This makes
meaningful comparisons difficult.
it is a requirement for public authorities to report the number of applications
that have been rejected each calendar year, but not the number of applications
that were approved. Therefore it is difficult to establish accurately the
percentage of applications rejected.
4.20 We have consulted with the Home Office and set out the revisions and
enhancements of the statistical requirements that we believe are necessary both to
assist us with our oversight role, and, to inform the public better about the use which
public authorities make of communications data. The suggested enhancements include
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