IPCO Annual Report 2018
occasions to members of Reprieve, an international organisation working to eliminate
human rights abuses. Reprieve’s challenge to transparency in relation to the application
of the Guidance has helped inform thinking on how best to address public concerns in this
sensitive area and shows the value of this kind of engagement to our work.
International engagement
Five Eyes
4.6
We have continued to develop productive relationships with other key oversight bodies
in Europe and with the Five Eyes group (the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand).
We participated in the Five Eyes Intelligence Oversight and Review Council (FIORC)
conference, which was held in Australia and hosted by the Office of the InspectorGeneral of Intelligence and Security. Sir Kenneth Parker represented IPCO at the 2018
event, along with a member of the Technology Advisory Panel (TAP)17 and the IPCO legal
adviser. FIORC is a forum within which the oversight bodies exchange views, compare
best practices for oversight and explore where cooperation on reviews and the sharing of
results is appropriate. For example, sharing material across borders is an issue of growing
significance; there is an emerging common objective to ensure this is lawful and the subject
of effective oversight.
UN Human Rights Council’s International Intelligence Oversight Forum
4.7
IPCO has contributed to the work of the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy,
Professor Joe Cannataci, since 2016.18 Judicial Commissioner, Sir Nicholas Blake and an
Inspector attended the UN Human Rights Council’s International Intelligence Oversight
Forum hosted by Professor Cannataci in Malta in October 2018. Sir Nicholas spoke on the
double lock process and the need to ensure that judicial independence is not undermined
by the need to be briefed from time to time by the authorities we oversee. He emphasised
the strengths of IPCO’s dual role in warrantry and retrospective inspection.
Europe
4.8
In April 2018, the IPC visited Berlin and attended a series of meetings organised by
diplomats from the German Embassy in London. The IPC met members of the Federal
German Parliamentary ‘G-10’ Control Commission who undertake a similar role to our JCs;
the Permanent Under Secretary of State for Intelligence at the Federal Chancellery; and the
Vice-President of the German foreign intelligence service (the Bundesnachrichtendienst).
4.9
We also held meetings with the Stiftung Neue Verantwortung (SNV), an independent think
tank that develops ideas as to how to bring about technological change in society, the
economy and the state. We have, in particular, worked with Thorsten Wetzling, who heads
the SNV’s research on surveillance and democratic governance. He recently published
Upping the Ante on Bulk Surveillance – An International Compendium of Good Legal
Safeguards and Oversight Innovations.19 Wetzling has suggested the UK is an example of a
country that has implemented best practice, both because of the openness of our oversight
regime and the important dialogue with civil society on establishing proportionate
standards for the review of bulk powers.
17 Details on the Technical Advisory Panel (TAP) are given in their report in Chapter 17.
18 https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Privacy/SR_Privacy/A_HRC_40_63.DOCX
19 https://www.stiftung-nv.de/sites/default/files/upping_the_ante_on_bulk_surveillance_v2.pdf
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