important feature of the UK interception regime under RIPA, including
the s8(4) regime, that pursuant to section 5(6) of RIPA, a warrant
permitting interception also permits the interception of content and
related communications data “if it is necessary to undertake in order to do
what is expressly authorised by the warrant”.
165.
In practice this has two significant implications:
(1) If the UK Intelligence Services conclude that, for technical reasons,
even a limited and narrowly authorised interception warrant (much
less a broad s8(4) warrant) requires bulk interception or extraction
in the context of modern forms of communication, potentially vast
amounts of communications may be initially intercepted in bulk,
even if the warrant itself or any accompanying certificate had been
narrowly
drawn.
The
potential
number
of
persons
whose
communications may be caught by this form of interception is
virtually limitless.
(2) Communications data, in particular, can be obtained through the
operation of s5(6), and extracted, stored, analysed and disseminated
as if it was all the target of the original authorisation, warrant or
certification. The Government may assert that it has voluntary,
internal, secret, unpublished rules that result in the
UK
Intelligence Services limiting in unspecified ways the degree of use
of it makes of content and communications data obtained in this
way; or how long it retains such communications data. But secret,
unpublished rules do not provide a clearly accessible legal
framework to protect rights. There is no accessible legal framework
to prevent vast amounts of communications data being collected and
retained under s5(6) and no concomitant remedial measure to
minimise the interference and subsequent examination of material
obtained in this way. As a result, the initial rules as to who might
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