2011 Annual Report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner
My inspectorate receives good co-operation from the CSPs who have a requirement to comply
with any lawful requests for communications data which are received from the public authorities.
The CSPs are asked to provide my inspectors with details of the communications data they
have disclosed to the public authorities during a specified period. The disclosures are randomly
checked against the records kept by the public authorities in order to verify that documentation
is available to support the acquisition of the data.
My inspectors conduct informal interviews with senior investigating officers, applicants and
analysts to examine what use has been made of the communications data acquired and to
ascertain whether it has been used to good effect. During this part of the inspection if necessary
they will, and often do, challenge the justifications for acquiring the data. Later in my report I will
highlight some more examples of how communications data has been used effectively by public
authorities to investigate criminal offences.
Any errors which have already been reported or recorded are scrutinised to check that there
are no inherent failings in the systems and procedures, and that action has been taken to prevent
recurrence.
Following each inspection a detailed report is prepared and this outlines, inter alia, what level
of compliance has been achieved with the Act and Code of Practice. I have sight of all of the
inspection reports in order to discharge properly my oversight functions. Where necessary, an
action plan will accompany the report which specifies the areas that require remedial action. A
traffic light system (red, amber, green) has been adopted for the recommendations to enable public
authorities to prioritise the areas where remedial action is necessary. Any red recommendations
are of immediate concern as they mainly involve serious breaches and/or non-compliance with
the Act or Code of Practice which could leave the public authority vulnerable to challenge. The
amber recommendations represent non-compliance to a lesser extent; however remedial action
must still be taken in these areas as they could potentially lead to serious breaches. The green
recommendations represent good practice or areas where the efficiency and effectiveness of
the process could be improved. A copy of the report is sent to the head of the public authority
concerned, e.g. the Chief Constable in the case of a police force or the Chief Executive in the
case of a local authority. They are required to confirm, within a prescribed time period, that the
recommendations have been implemented or outline the progress they have made to achieve
the recommendations.
7.3. Communications Data Requests
During the reporting year public authorities as a whole, submitted 494,078 requests for
communications data. The intelligence agencies, police forces and other law enforcement
agencies are still the principal users of communications data. It is important to recognise that
public authorities often make many requests for communications data in the course of a single
investigation, so the total figure does not indicate the number of individuals or addresses targeted.
Those numbers are not readily available, but would be much smaller. Figure 4 illustrates that
the number of requests submitted in 2011 represents an 11% decrease on the previous year.
The statistics my office have collated show that 29 police forces have reduced their demands
for communications data on the previous year. The following explanations for the reduction
in usage have been provided by some of these police forces; the conclusion of a number of
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