2011 Annual Report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner
“It is important for the prisons to ensure that random monitoring takes the lowest
priority under the interception strategy. First the monitoring staff must deal with
the telephone calls which are made by prisoners who are subject to offence
related or intelligence-led monitoring”
Second, over a quarter of the prisons inspected were retaining intercept product (generally
Pin-phone backup DVDs) for longer than the permitted three month period. This represents a
breach of Prison Rule 35D(1). These prisons were instructed to destroy any product that was
older than the permitted three month period and monitor the system more closely in future to
prevent any recurrence. I have been informed that a planned upgrade to the Pin-phone system
will eradicate this issue completely as intercept product will no longer need to be downloaded
from the system and will be automatically weeded out once it reaches three months.
“Over a quarter of the prisons inspected were retaining intercept product for
longer than the permitted three month period... a planned upgrade to the Pinphone system will eradicate this issue”
Third, the authorisations in place to conduct the offence related and intelligence-led monitoring
were examined by my inspectors and regrettably 9 of the establishments had still failed to take
on board the reduced authorisation periods which came into force when the revised NSF was
published in February 2009. Offence related monitoring must be reviewed at least every 3 months,
and reviews for intelligence led monitoring must be undertaken within one month. As a result
prisoners had continued to be monitored for longer than the permitted period without review.
Recommendations were made for these establishments to align their authorisations to the NSF
and introduce a robust review process so that monitoring does not continue if an authorisation
has expired.
Last year I reported that serious weaknesses and failings were found in relation to the issuing and
filing of the Communications Compact in 31 prisons, which was a cause for concern. This year
my inspectors found failings to follow the correct procedures in this aspect of the process in 20
prisons and these resulted in amber recommendations being made. This was an improvement
on the findings from the previous year, however the number of prisons with failings in this area
is still too high.
“It is important for monitoring logs to be completed to a good standard to show
that the monitoring has been conducted, and provide a full audit trail of the
interception activity”
My inspectors also found that there was room to improve the quality of the monitoring logs
being maintained by the monitoring staff in over half of the establishments. It is important for
monitoring logs to be completed to a good standard to show that the monitoring has been
conducted, and provide a full audit trail of the interception activity. The monitoring logs will also
assist with the review process and provide the Authorising Officer with the information required
to decide whether to continue or cease monitoring.
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