Report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner - March 2015
regarding a third party at risk).
7.74 Subscriber information. Without exception the police force control rooms
sought subscriber information to assist in providing an emergency response and did so
within the emergency period. The inspectors were satisfied that the data was acquired
in appropriate circumstances and there was not an automatic recourse to acquire data.
If the police could sufficiently identify a caller’s location by other methods they would,
and if the police thought that it was appropriate to call the person back to establish their
location and whether they needed emergency assistance they would. Where the 999/112
system was being abused by hoax callers efforts to identify those responsible were dealt
with using RIPA 2000 powers as would be the case with any other criminal matter.
7.75 Traffic data (location information). It was apparent from our inquiry that there
was a varying capability in the different police forces to receive and comprehend the
location information that was made available by CSPs to the emergency operators at the
time a 999/112 call was connected. Furthermore, there were discrepancies as to what
further location information (in addition to that relating to the original 999/112 call) that
different CSPs were content to disclose to the police outside of the provisions of RIPA
2000 (when those incidents were still within the emergency period).
7.76 As mentioned above, systems have been established that enable location
information to be passed electronically to the emergency authority (e.g. police) at the
time a call is connected from the emergency operator40. Some forces have invested in
technology which automatically maps the location information they receive electronically
from the emergency operator; as a consequence, it was rarely the case that those forces
needed to use their powers under RIPA 2000 to acquire location information. Other police
forces did not have such technical systems, or, the staff in the control rooms lacked the
skill to make use of the location information that was verbally relayed from the operator
and these deficiencies could have led to delays in deploying an emergency service. To
compensate for these deficiencies the control room staff called upon the services of an
accredited SPoC to obtain data from the relevant CSP and in a number of these cases
the urgent oral process under RIPA 2000 was invoked to acquire this additional location
information. One police force reported that this accounted for 25% of all the SPoC’s out
of hours call out work while another reported that 14% of all the RIPA 2000 applications
were undertaken to support 999/112 emergency calls.
7.77 Whilst in these circumstances the acquisition of data is appropriate, this still
represents a technical ‘overuse’ of RIPA 2000 powers because this data should have been
disclosed outside of RIPA 2000 as it was required within one hour of the termination of a
999/112 call to enable the provision of emergency assistance. In conclusion this inquiry
has found some evidence of overuse of RIPA 2000 powers due to inadequacies in the
999/112 emergency provisions within some police forces.
40 See footnote 39
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