2013 Annual Report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner
accommodated on the Home Office estate, a department we inspect, and this could give
the impression that we are not entirely independent. I have raised these matters with the
Home Office and have been told they are being addressed, but not yet, so far as I can
see, to much effect.
6.2.9 With the additional resources and facilities, I presently consider that I and my office
would continue to be able to satisfy myself that the Part I interception and communications
data activities of the relevant public authorities are lawful and proportionate or, to any
extent that they may not be, to report that to the Prime Minister.
6.2.10 The scale of interception and communications data inspections. The
main public authorities who undertake interception activities or communications data
acquisition under RIPA 2000 Part I are large organisations. But my relevant responsibility
is confined to their interception and communications data activities and I regard that
as manageable. Inspections need to look efficiently at the integrity and lawfulness of
the system for applying for and granting warrants or requests for communications data
and at the systems that are in place to secure compliance with the statutory safeguards.
Individual applications and operations need to be looked at to see that they comply with
the statutory and Code of Practice requirements. We do this. In addition, this report shows
that my interception oversight has not been confined to formal inspections only – see for
instance Retention, Storage and Destruction of Intercepted Material (See paragraphs 3.48
to 3.57), and the extensive work we have undertaken to address Questions of Concern.
6.2.11 A broader resources question. There is also a question whether the scale of our
current oversight is regarded by others as sufficient for modern purposes in the national
interest. That said, I am not myself clear what a significantly enlarged oversight of RIPA
2000 Part I activities might in detail entail.
6.2.12 There is also an important question of personal responsibility. I regard myself as
personally responsible for our oversight and I personally undertake an important part of
it. Enlarged oversight would certainly bring more people to bear on it, but it would risk
bringing about a bureaucratic dilution of responsibility.
3. Is the Interception of Communications Commissioner fully independent
of the government and the public authorities?7
6.3.1 Yes. I should regard any serious suggestion otherwise as offensive. What follows
is not to be regarded as qualification of this unequivocal assertion.
6.3.2 The office of the Interception of Communications Commissioner has existed since
the inception of the Interception of Communications Act 1985. Successive Commissioners
have always been judges or retired judges of the Court of Appeal or the former Judicial
Committee of the House of Lords. Complete independence is a required hallmark of any
judge.
7 There have been media suggestions that the oversight regime of GCHQ in particular is light and ineffective,
and that I and other commissioners have limited remit and are reluctant to challenge the agencies.
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