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IPCO Annual Report 2018
7.26
SIS’s submissions to the Foreign Secretary are supplemented by internal documents,
including decision documents. Papers presented clear, detailed arguments as to why it
remained necessary, proportionate and lawful to proceed with operations. SIS’s internal
record keeping has been the subject of recommendations in previous years and we have
continued to make a number of recommendations which focused on ensuring SIS has
a comprehensive audit trail of decisions taken. However, we are satisfied that SIS have
dedicated substantial resources to ongoing training and IT improvements to enable
this work.
7.27
We reviewed a number of specific submissions covering potentially high-risk cases. We
were pleased that these included a strong necessity and proportionality argument for
running the case in question, along with robust processes for keeping the risks involved
under constant review.
7.28
SIS is engaged in several programmes of work which amount to training and ‘capability
building’ with foreign liaison services and/or military and intelligence units. With this
work, SIS is delivering against Her Majesty’s Government’s (HMG’s) objectives to promote
good human rights practice and assist partner governments to build capable investigative
services, often against a specific local threat that impacts upon British interests. In some
cases, the local liaison service and internal partners will have a very poor human rights
record; SIS therefore seeks to insulate its provision of training, equipment and, similar
to a specific unit from the wider liaison service, to ensure any capability SIS provides is
not abused.
7.29
This work to safeguard and control the use of any training or capability is essential
to ensure that SIS are not contributing to unlawful or unacceptable activity. We have
discussed several examples of this model with SIS officers in London and overseas, and
with legal officers, and are confident that SIS take their international obligations extremely
serious. When reviewing section 7 authorisations, we consider the mitigations in place in
each case and the credibility of those mitigations. We were generally satisfied with the
mitigations SIS set out in submissions, but in future inspections we intend to investigate
further how SIS assesses its capacity building work against the risk that HMG might
inadvertently provide training or support which could develop a liaison partner’s ability to
conduct unlawful acts.
7.30
For SIS, capacity building is conducted with a small, discrete unit formed of a select
number of staff from the relevant liaison partner and subject to close supervision by
SIS, often known as a joint unit. One of the key risks SIS must consider in this context
is whether the capabilities acquired by members of the joint unit might be disclosed
into their wider service and then be used for purposes beyond the scope of the mission
and of the authorisation. In general, this risk was carefully assessed in submissions and
credible mitigations were presented to Ministers. However, in a small number of cases
we remained unconvinced that SIS could credibly control and limit the disclosure of the
relevant capability.
7.31
In 2019, we intend to investigate further how SIS assesses its capacity building work against
the risk that HMG provides training or support which could develop high risk liaisons’ ability
to conduct unlawful acts, which has implications for the Consolidated Guidance and other
legal considerations.