2012 Annual Report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner
6.4 Interception Errors
Figure 4 – Total Number of Intercept Errors over the previous 5 years
60
50
55
50
40
42
36
30
27
20
10
0
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
During the reporting year, 55 errors / breaches were reported to my office by public authorities.
This represents a 30% increase on the 42 errors reported in 2011. However, 2 points are worthy
of note. First, the number of warrants did increase by 16% in 2012. Second, for the first time,
the error figures have also included breaches under Section 1(5) of RIPA that were caused
by law enforcement agencies not having the necessary authority in place to acquire stored
communications (such as text messages, voicemails and emails). There were 7 such breaches
this year (13% of all errors) and it is important to note that these errors were not made by the
interception agencies in relation to lawful interception warrants.
Figure 5 illustrates the breakdown of errors by responsible party and Figure 6 illustrates the
breakdown of errors by cause.
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