Report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner - March 2015
7.70 Paragraph 4 of the General Conditions of Entitlement38 published by Ofcom
pursuant of the Communications Act 2003 (referred to as GC4) requires that where a
Communications Provider provides an Electronic Communications Service:
(a) at a fixed location, the Caller Location Information must, at least, accurately
reflect the fixed location of the End-User’s terminal equipment including the
full postal address (for example a landline’s installation address); and
(b) using a Mobile Network, the Caller Location Information must include, at
least, the Cell Identification of the cell from which the call is being made (for
example the location of the mobile phone includes the mast and the cell
through which the 999/112 call is made and the predicted coverage of the
cell).
7.71 Systems39 have been established that enable location information to be passed
electronically to the emergency authority (police, ambulance, fire service etc.) at the
time a phone call is connected from the emergency operator. However, on occasions
the emergency authorities may require additional information to help locate the person
making the 999/112 call, for example where the call is dropped or incomplete, or where
the area covered by a cell-site may be large or unknown and the emergency authority may
require more refined information to deploy an emergency service. The code of practice
explains that emergency authorities may acquire 999/112 related data (as described in
GC4) from emergency operators or the relevant CSPs for a period of up to one hour after
the termination of the emergency call outside the provisions of RIPA 2000 in order to
provide emergency assistance. In practice this communications data is acquired by staff
within police force control rooms.
7.72 My inspectors undertook an inquiry to check that communications data was being
acquired appropriately in these instances and, that the emergency provisions set by GC4
and the code of practice were not being abused. This inquiry was conducted between
January and March 2014 and during that period 13 police forces were inspected. During
these inspections the inspectors scrutinised the systems and procedures for acquiring
communications data in relation to emergency calls within the forces’ control rooms.
7.73 Our inquiry sought to establish how often police forces may receive calls where
the caller location is not sufficient to deploy emergency services to the scene of the
emergency and as a consequence, on how many occasions the police needed to acquire
further communications data to assist in locating that caller. We also sought to determine
whether the powers under RIPA 2000 had been appropriately invoked when police forces
sought to acquire data within the emergency period that did not relate to the maker of
the emergency call (for example, to investigate hoax 999/112 calls or, to respond to calls
38 See http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/telecoms/ga/generalconditions22nov12.pdf. Paragraph
4 of the General Conditions of Entitlement is often referred to in various publications relating to the
provision of 999/112 Emergency Calls as GC4
39 See www.sinet.bt.com/sinet/SINs/pdf/278v2p1.pdf When an emergency 999/112 call is connected to the
emergency service (for example the police) the BT Enhanced Information Services with Emergency Calls
(EISEC) transmits the latitude / longitude of the building / mast upon which the cell plates are located,
predicted cellular coverage plus the assurance level of the area indicated.
www.iocco-uk.info
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