Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Annual Report 2019
individuals, that the applicant, Single Point of Contact (SPoC) and Authorising Officer (AO)
will recognise and make reference to any sensitivities in the application. OCDA’s central
review function will improve consistency in this area and will mean that the IPC can have a
high level of confidence that requests relating to sensitive professions are being correctly
marked and handled appropriately in accordance with the CoP.
3.16
Throughout 2019, IPCO made suggestions to authorities that changes to workflow systems
may help improve the accuracy of data. Inspectors will run specific free-text searches in
relation to sensitive professions during inspections and so will review a high proportion of
these applications. The most common issue we see is that a record is incorrectly marked as
relating to a sensitive profession. Inspectors have found, that many such applications did
not relate to a sensitive profession but were incorrectly marked as such because the ‘N/A’
option, which the applicant meant to select, sits directly above “journalist”. The workflow
providers have accepted our observation and we expect that they will improve the user
interface for these systems to reduce mistakes of this kind.
3.17
In the future, ODCA will collate statistics in relation to sensitive professions for
communications data (CD) applications so the figures published in this report will be
gathered from a single central record. At OCDA, we will also continue to work with
authorities to ensure that sensitive professions are marked correctly. OCDA staff, in line
with advice from IPCO Inspectors, have encouraged applicants and SPoCs to think more
widely about sensitive professions and to include, for example, community nurses and
borough councillors. We anticipate that this guidance will encourage a more consistent
approach, and therefore more accurate and comparable statistics.
Bulk authorisations
3.18
The nature of bulk acquisition means that material associated with journalists will be
subject to collection in the same manner as all other individuals. The Act therefore provides
a number of safeguards to ensure that bulk collection does not enable unnecessary
retention or examination of confidential journalistic material.
3.19
Under Part 6 of the Act, an intelligence agency may apply for a bulk interception warrant
(covered by Chapter 1) or equipment interference warrant (covered by Chapter 3). Sections
154 and 195 impose restrictions in relation to confidential material: the relevant agency
must inform the IPC as soon as reasonably practicable if material containing confidential
journalistic material is being retained for any purpose other than destruction.
3.20
The Act does not include specific safeguards in relation to journalists or confidential
journalistic material for Bulk Personal Datasets (BPD). However, these are set out in the
Codes of Practice meaning that the material is protected nonetheless. Under Chapter 7
of the Code, any individual selecting for examination material which relates to a sensitive
profession, including journalists, must have regard to the potential infringement of the
right to privacy and freedom of expression which could result from their examination. As
set out in Chapters 8, 9 and 10, we review the justification records for examination of BPD
material kept by each agency and we specifically consider the records kept in relation to
any examination of material expected to relate to journalists.
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