Report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner - March 2015
Points of Note
Interception of Communications
2795 interception warrants (to access the content of communications and related
communications data) were authorised in 2014 , an increase of 1.3% on the
previous year.
1605 interception warrants were extant on 31st December 2014. Of those, 20
were issued under section 8(4).
In 2014 my office conducted 26 interception inspections. During these inspections
936 interception warrants were examined which equates to 58% of the number of
extant warrants at the end of the year or 34% of the new warrants issued in 2014.
The total number of recommendations made in our inspection reports for the
9 interception agencies and 4 warrant granting departments was 85. The audits
undertaken by my office and resultant recommendations have lead to improved
compliance in key areas or systems and procedures to be changed to enhance
safeguards.
In 2013 I made a number of recommendations about the retention, storage and
destruction of intercepted material and related communications data. A large
majority of these recommendations have now been implemented in full which
has resulted in a significant amount of material and data being destroyed and
retention periods being reduced where there was no persuasive justification
provided for its ongoing retention.
60 interception errors were reported to my office in 2014. 78% of the errors fell
into three main categories: section 15/16 safeguards breaches; failure to cancel
interception; or interception of the incorrect communications address. The
interception agencies and Communication Service Providers (CSPs) provided my
office with the full details of these errors, the consequences were investigated,
steps were taken to prevent recurrence and any erroneously acquired material or
data was destroyed.
Overall our experience is that the interception agencies have a desire to comply
with the legislation and to achieve high standards in the work that they carry
out. There is a strong culture of compliance and of self reporting when things
go wrong. There is however always room for improvement and the work that my
office undertakes assists the interception agencies to keep their systems and their
use of these intrusive powers under constant review.
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