2011 Annual Report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner
6.5.4. SOCA, HMRC,PSNI, Metropolitan Police and Scottish Government
I have followed the practice of previous years and visited the following Departments on two
occasions in 2011 to undertake warrantry reviews
Department
Selection Periods
Inspection Periods
Serious Organised Crime Agency
(SOCA)
Police Service Northern Ireland
(PSNI)
Her Majesty’s Revenue and
Customs (HMRC)
Metropolitan Police CounterTerrorism Command (MetCTC)
Scottish Government
mid June
mid November
May
November
early July
early November
early June
early December
early July
mid November
mid July
early December
early June
late November
late July
early December
late June
late December
late July
early December
Matters related to HMRC, Met CTC, PSNI and SOCA were discussed during meetings with
respective Secretaries of State and I took the opportunity to discuss Scottish Government
business with the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Justice. When I met him in December 2011
he expressed satisfaction in relation to the information he received to support the warrant
applications he considered. From this meeting and my bi-annual reviews, I was able to form the
impression that the staff involved in the preparation and execution of warrantry in Scotland,
were diligent and fully aware of their obligations in relation to the legislation.
Case Study 7 – An Example of an Intercept Error by SOCA
March and July 2011 - SOCA reported two breaches where incorrect information
regarding the attribution of communications addresses had been provided by operational
teams to technical staff. The cause of both errors was human oversight, first in relation to
keying error, second the misattribution of a digit. The errors were immediately identified
and the communications addresses deleted from systems. In each case the operational
teams were advised of the errors and of the importance of double-checking the accuracy
of numbers before providing them to warrantry and ultimately technical staff to be placed
under intercept.
Case Study 8 – An Example of an Intercept Error by the
Metropolitan Police
May 2011 - The reported error concerned the transposition of a digit in relation to a
mobile phone to be placed under interception. Interception commenced and the breach
was immediately identified, at which point all activity was suspended. Met CTC applied for
a new schedule to be added to the warrant with the correct communications address. At
this point interception recommenced. More stringent quality assurance processes were
implemented by the agency to prevent this kind of breach recurring.A new post of Head of
Warrantry was additionally created at the agency to manage intercept warrant applications
more effectively.
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