2013 Annual Report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner
•
•
of an individual who is within the British Islands is limited by a process
equivalent to that for a section 8(1) warrant;
the examination of the intercepted material is effected by search criteria
constructed to comply with the section 8(4) process;
the process is subject to Retention, Storage and Destruction policies and
procedures which I have examined in detail and which I consider in paragraphs
3.48 to 3.57 of this report.
6.5.44 Risk of misuse? It is legitimate to ask what risks are there that this process might
miscarry; or what features of it might be seen as unacceptable potential invasion of the
privacy of individuals in whom the interception agencies have no legitimate interest. As
to which:
•
•
•
•
I have personally undertaken a detailed investigation of the statutory, technical
and practical operation of section 8(4) warrants;
I have confirmed that the interception agencies understanding of the relevant
statutory and Code of Practice requirements coincides with mine as expressed
in this report;
I have confirmed that the interception agencies technical and practical
operation of the section 8(4) process is designed to comply with the statutory
and Code of Practice requirements;
I have also made visits to and had meetings with a number of CSPs to discuss
and, so far as I am able, understand the technicalities of their implementation
of section 8(4) warrants under section 11 of RIPA 2000. The technicalities are
complicated and sophisticated but I believe that I have sufficiently understood
their principles at least for present purposes.
Decision of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal about section 8(4).
6.5.45 On 9th December 2004, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), in Open Rulings
on Preliminary Issues of Law, considered the lawful integrity of section 8(4) of RIPA 2000.
I have included an extended summary of these Rulings in Appendix 1 to this report. The
general tenor of the Rulings is to endorse the structural integrity in law of the section
8(4) procedure including the principle of a filtering process to reduce and make individual
selections from generalised interception material.
6.5.46 In the light of this IPT decision, it is, I think, pertinent to ask what has changed
since 2000 or 2004 so that a statutory procedure which was re-enacted in 2000, and
whose integrity was judged to be intact in 2004, may now have become inadequate and
outdated.
6.5.47 Certainly the use of the internet has expanded in volume and sophistication.
Investigatory techniques are no doubt more sophisticated then they were. But I do not
53