Report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner - March 2015
used by police forces to identify journalistic sources, examined the appropriateness of
this use, and made recommendations to ensure adequate safeguards are provided to
protect journalistic sources.
7.85
In summary my office’s inquiry found:
•
•
•
In the 3 year period covered by the inquiry 19 police forces sought
communications data in relation to 34 investigations into suspected illicit
relationships between public officials (sources) and journalists.
608 applications were authorised to seek this communications data. This
represented a very small percentage (0.1%) of the total applications that were
authorised by the police in that period which demonstrated that such usage
is not widespread. These figures were also artificially inflated by exceptional
investigations like the Metropolitan Police’s Operation Elveden – removing
that investigation from the overall statistics provided context and would
represent less than 1 application per police force per year (when averaged
out over the 3 years and all UK police forces).
Police forces had not circumvented other legislation by using their powers
under Chapter II of Part I of RIPA 2000 to acquire communications data in
these cases. However the observations of Emmerson and Friedman (1998)46
appeared pertinent to the acquisition of communications data when reviewing
its use to identify journalistic sources, i.e. that it undoubtedly has the potential
to give rise to violations of Article 10 of ECHR47.
7.86 All of the communications data applications had been authorised by a DP of
the correct rank. The applications related to investigations where public officials were
suspected of criminal conduct or where a media organisation had voluntarily disclosed
information to the police.
7.87 Generally speaking the police forces did not give the question of necessity,
proportionality and collateral intrusion sufficient consideration. They focused on privacy
considerations (Article 8 of the ECHR) and did not give due consideration to freedom of
speech (Article 10). Further information was required in the applications to justify why it
was more important to identify the journalist’s source than to respect their anonymity in
the specific circumstances of the investigation. This included:
•
•
•
a lack of specific detail about the information that had been (or was suspected
to have been) leaked;
whether in the circumstances of the case the high threshold for suspecting
the common law offence of misconduct in public office had been met;
insufficient consideration of whether the leaked information was of public
interest merit;
46 Emmerson, B. QC., and Friedman, D. QC., A Guide to the Police Act 1997 (1998) Butterworths, (London) –
p66 – 67
47 See paragraphs 6.25 to 6.29 http://www.iocco-uk.info/docs/IOCCO%20Communications%20Data%20
Journalist%20Inquiry%20Report%204Feb15.pdf
www.iocco-uk.info
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