IPCO Annual Report 2018
17.27
A significant proportion of errors result from the applicant noting down incorrect details
from the reporting person, such as victims or witnesses, or inaccurately transposing the
communications address into their application. While this is inevitable, to some degree, it
is essential that applicants are vigilant and that post-validation checks are used as much
as possible.
22
381
Designated Person/No authority
Applicant
Communications Service Provider
SPOC
360
140
Figure 22: CD errors by user in law enforcement, public authorities and prisons,
2018
SPoC
Applicant
CSP
Designated
Person (DP)/No
authority
81 (19 IP)
309 (22 IP)
–
–
Incorrect time/date
199 (66 IP)
43 (12 IP)
50
–
Incorrect data type
96
–
32
–
Incorrect data
–
–
27
–
Excess data
–
–
14
–
Negative result when
data was available
–
–
14
–
Data acquired without
authority of DP
–
–
–
14
DP wrong rank
–
–
–
8
Other
5
8
3
–
381
360
140
22
Total
Table 5: Breakdown of communications data errors by error type and
individual responsible, 2018
Error reduction
17.28
Across public authorities, efforts to reduce the need for SPoCs to manually transpose
data continue. We have encouraged public authorities to introduce technical means of
minimising errors if possible and have seen the value of quality assurance and validations
checks from SPoCs, which have shown a higher number of ‘near misses’ being recorded.
These are particularly valuable in relation to comparison checks between the originating
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