2011 Annual Report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner
6.3 Lawful Intercept Warrants
In previous reports I have presented the following:
• Number of lawful interception warrants signed by the Home Secretary (for national security
and serious crime) both in-year and extant at the year-end.
• Number of modifications to lawful interception warrants authorised by a Senior Official at
the Home Office both in-year and extant at the year-end.
• Number of lawful interception warrants signed by Scottish Ministers both in-year and extant
at the year-end.
• Number of modifications signed by Scottish Senior Official both in-year and extant at the
year-end.
My rationale for presenting these figures has been to illustrate to readers the extent to which
lawful interception was being used as a tool to counter the problems faced by the UK arising
from serious crime, and threats to national security. In last year’s annual report I was able to
present year-on-year changes in warrant numbers.
I have also set out in previous reports that the Foreign Secretary (on behalf of SIS and GCHQ),
the Defence Secretary and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland authorised applications
for lawful interception. However, I did not disclose the numbers of such warrants in the open
report as I accepted that doing so might have undermined national security. My position in
relation to warrants signed by the Home Secretary was that as the total number included both
warrants issued in the interest of national security, and for the prevention and detection of
serious crime, disclosure of this combined figure did not undermine national security.
During a period of potential reform to intelligence oversight, driven in part by demands for
greater transparency about the extent of commissioner oversight, I have reconsidered with the
security services and others the reasoning behind the non-disclosure of warrant numbers in
relation to those Departments previously omitted from the open report. The objective of the
exercise has been to seek to develop a method of illustrating the quantum of interception
warrants signed in the UK and from which I could sample during inspection visits.
I present in this section therefore, the results of the discussions with those public authorities
whose lawful interception activities I oversee. I am able this year to report a single figure
comprising the total number of lawful interception warrants signed by the Secretaries of State
and the Scottish Ministers. This figure fulfils the objective of enabling readers to discern the total
pool of warrants from which I select my samples for review during Inspection visits whilst not
disclosing information, for example on the extent of coverage of any specific target that may be
detrimental to national security.
The total number of lawful intercept warrants issued in 2011 under Part I Chapter I of RIPA
therefore was 2911.
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